This chapter summarizes what you have learned about the meaning of total relaxation and contains three meditations to help you complete your spiritual journey to your centre, to connect with universal energy. The Science of Relaxation™ meditation in particular is a powerful and transformational exercise that brings energy into the body on the breath and transports it to every part, releasing samskaras and healing the body and mind on every level.
‘Silence is a beautiful language. If more people spoke it, the world would be a better place.’
YOGI ASHOKANANDA
Total relaxation is only possible when you completely surrender and are in your centre, your higher nature. Nothing can move you, nothing can knock you off-balance. But if you are living a life that is untrue to yourself (perhaps you have assumed a false personality or borrowed ideas), you will be haunted by insecurities and fears about what you may lose, no matter how loved and relaxed you think you are.
To be totally relaxed you have to bring all your five senses under your supervision – not under the supervision of society, not under the supervision of the intellect, but under the supervision of intelligence. Intelligence is not the same as intellect. The latter is specific to the mind and the senses, and can change. Intelligence, however, is the subject of the spirit or the soul and can never be changed but will always grow. By higher nature, soul or spirit, I mean an infinite source of intelligence or God. As we are part of this intelligence in the form of our body, senses, subtle body and spirit, all of these parts must be engaged in true relaxation.
If we put our intelligence into something, that something is filled with our intelligence. If we put our intelligence into something else, that too is filled. But it is all the same intelligence – there is only one. In the same way that a pot contains space, so a house contains space, and the sky contains space, and this space is all the same. And so all intelligence is identical and connected. In order to achieve total relaxation we must connect with this single, eternal, universal intelligence, which has no individual identity.
In a state of deep meditation, your mind loses sight of the external world. There is nothing but pure, infinite consciousness. Pure consciousness is the witness, and all that the witness sees is consciousness because that is all that exists. Once you reach that state, you will never feel fear because you will be connected with the true nature of yourself.
The frog is like a human.
He constantly sticks his tongue out to eat flies,
Leaving his comfort zone,
Leaving his home to find satisfaction.
Before he knows it, he gets eaten by a snake.
So it is for us. We leave our eternal source,
Constantly wandering and searching like a frog,
We forget our awareness and we lose ourselves so much
That we get fascinated like a frog.
Before we know it, time eats us.
It is the nature of totality or a cycle.
If we are out of our centre,
If we are not at home,
We are all travellers, like tourists.
We come into the body and onto the earth as tourists.
Despite our father and our inner nature being so rich,
We seek pleasure and riches in foreign lands through our senses.
Our father in our nature kindly awaits to give us total richness
But our greed is never satisfied.
As tourists with limited permission to stay and explore
We put so much investment in foreign lands
Despite our father and our inner nature being so rich
The richness waits before us
When we feel pain and disappointment or the loss of investment in foreign lands
through the senses,
We feel hurt, we feel pain, we feel sorrow.
Despite our father and our inner nature being so rich.
Our minds have created so much confusion, our senses don’t know what to follow.
Return to your home, which waits for you within your heart,
To the fullness of joy with the richness of fulfilment.
Return home to your inner nature
To rest at ease
With love and peace.
YOGI ASHOKANANDA
The only way to align and be balanced in your centre is by using your breath, engaging your body, surrendering and acknowledging and accepting the nature of duality. The practices I have described throughout this book distribute the life force, prana, throughout your body to balance your body and your mind. This chapter’s meditations will help you to use your breath to move energy and blood flow into different organs, in order to bring about total equilibrium as well as releasing those soul memories and experiences (samskaras) that may be draining your energy.
As we have seen, samskaras are the remaining impressions left on your soul by experiences that form your personality. They are your unused emotions (your karma), which remain in your subconscious and have a profound influence on your physical and emotional state. Samskaras hold onto your energy, making you feel lethargic, stressed and anxious. They can even develop into chronic conditions and dis-ease. Remember: whatever emotion appears on a physical level will have appeared on an energetic level first.
You do not have to try to rid yourself of negativity – instead, you are shifting your perception and changing your physical body along with the memories it contains. In this way, even if the memory of something you once found traumatic may still be there, your reaction to it has been transformed.
Peace, bliss, freedom, joy, silence, happiness and whatever else you enjoy are all part of you and within you. You just need to make these things available to yourself. Being miserable takes up a lot of room in your mind, but you do not need to have a lot going on there in order to be happy!
There are two types of samskaras or stored memories, those deriving from the experiences of your past lives and those deriving from your present life – from the information fed to you by your senses. These are stored all over the body but they are released from two different centres, which must be activated before release can take place. These centres are the belly button, which releases samskaras from previous lives, and the third eye, which releases samskaras from this life and also acknowledges samskaras from previous lives. If you awaken your third eye and align it with your belly button, you will be able to release the samskaras from previous lives as well as those deriving from this life (see page 115).
The third eye is the point at which samskaras connect to the outside world to create a karma. Your perception and knowledge of, and connection to, the outer world occurs through your senses at the third eye. This means that if your third eye is not aligned with your intelligence, it is in the dark – in other words, it accumulates samskaras, makes judgments and takes decisions without awareness.
These samskaras are stored in every cell of your body and affect the functionality of all your organs, so any release of samskaras can be felt all over your body and in the mind as well. When a samskara is brought to a peak to be released, it explodes like a volcano and this explosion is usually accompanied by an emotional and/or physical reaction, such as crying, or a mental realization. After the eruption there is silence and the body and mind are able to truly relax and connect with each other.
Often if people cannot sleep, or suffer from depression, stress or other symptoms of unrest in body and mind, it is because samkaras have accumulated and they do not know how to release them. Every day we wash our bodies on the outside, but we do not think about cleaning ourselves emotionally or energetically. All the exercises in this chapter will encourage the release of samskaras.
Swadharma means acting in accordance with your nature. To evolve, you need a personal revolution but this must be more than adopting the thoughts, ideas or actions of other people. Your inner revolution may contain the seeds of other people’s ideas, but knowing your own purpose (your dharma) and being true to yourself are what really count. Even if you believe you have found your dharma by following somebody else’s beliefs, your sense of purpose and contentment will not last for long. Awakening gives you the possibility to know yourself and your swadharma.
The only way to truly discover your dharma, to access your inner self and find total relaxation, peace and happiness is by practising meditation. You have already planted the seeds for that internal revolution by using the breathing techniques and various practices in this book.
The following three exercises will support you in discovering your true nature. Samskaras block your access to your true nature, but when they are released you are able to see yourself fully; in front of a metaphorical mirror, you stand absolutely naked and can see yourself as you are. You find the centre of yourself. When you are in your centre, you are unshakable, strong and gentle at the same time, and you are totally comfortable with your own uniqueness, which does not fit into any particular category or into anyone else’s perception of you. You lose your self-consciousness but gain complete self-awareness.
LEVEL: YELLOW
The Atma meditation is a meditation of the self, soul or spirit, which allows you to discover the infinite that exists within you – your inner power. It draws the power of the universe into you, aligning your individual self with universal energy and truth so you may come to realize your own reality. In so doing, your reality alters, as does your perception of your life. This means that real and important changes can now take place. Not only will you experience greater self-awareness, you will feel a greater connection to other people and to a higher source. Each and every one of us is entitled to feel inner peace, love, joy, fulfilment, happiness, freedom and success. This meditation allows you to access the power within you from which these experiences can develop and become a natural part of your life and who you are.
During this meditation focus your attention on the centre of your head. The centre of your brain is like the centre of the universe and because you want to access this place of infinity, you must keep your attention inside your mind, not outside your body. While you are meditating on the centre of your mind, feel the energy from the universe coming into this place and allow the universe to download its wisdom and infinite space into your head, your mind and your experience.
1 Sit comfortably on the floor or on a chair. Find the comfort of your own breath, your body and your mind. Bring your awareness to your whole physical body from your head to your fingertips and toes. Gently draw a little picture of your body in your mind and notice how you feel as you look at yourself.
2 Observe the serenity of your posture and let your mind experience the stillness. Don’t try to create it, just sense the calm, the feelings of being still, of being open, of being free in your own self. You are meditating on your whole body rather than on the different parts. Your physical existence is inside your body, you are whatever you are, and right now you are looking at the dimension where you exist.
3 There is no pressure on your eyes to be closed. They are very gently shut because you are inside your whole body. Try to see yourself from six dimensions: top, bottom, front, back, left side and right side. There is nothing around you. You are alone with yourself.
4 You are at the centre of the wheel of life, of time. Let the light of universal energy rush toward you. Your brain is the centre of the universe and you are the vacuum drawing the whole universe into your body. Allow the universe to download its wisdom and infinite space into your mind. Continue to experience your own presence from all directions. Feel the energy of your awareness and sense the space. Stay with the feeling that you are the centre of everything, that everything is rushing into you and that everything ends inside you.
5 As thoughts and feelings arise, they rush into your body where they become diluted and disappear. Do not try to resist them as that only creates a divide where you are not with yourself. There is total acceptance. Whatever is coming, you are with your inner self. Absorb the light, the energy and the feelings rushing into you. You are the open space of the universe.
6 Gently place your hands over your heart and feel the warmth, the self-awareness, the love and compassion for yourself and for others. Experience feelings of grace and gratitude for your existence, and the sense of silence and clarity.
7 Smooth your aura down to your root chakra, and over your thighs to your feet. Rub your back, and then your arms from your shoulders to your fingertips.
8 Rub your hands together, place them in front of your face and let your eyes open gently in your palms. Place your hands on either side of your head and smooth the energy of your brain. Finish by gently stroking the back of your ears.
LEVEL: BLUE
This meditation has been described as a way of cleansing yourself from the inside out. We pay a lot of attention to caring for our bodies on the outside, but we must also look after the inner self and transform the energies that are not serving us well. When my teacher Gurudev Dilipji passed away in 2009, his wish was for the Science of Relaxation™ meditation to be brought to as many people as possible, so that they too could experience its transformational qualities. What makes this meditation so powerful is that it works on integrating all levels of your self – your material personality as well as your higher spiritual self. Its deep relaxation brings inner harmony and a revitalizing of mind and body. It replenishes feelings of optimism, openness and freedom and of being connected to yourself and others.
The Science of Relaxation™ breath connects your mind and your body. It surfaces, transforms and releases your emotions, while still retaining your energy. Letting go of past experiences and emotions frees you from your samskaras and the dis-eases within you. Negative and positive emotions are both part of your energy and your experience and they are both OK. This meditation allows you to explore your full personality and see all of yourself as you really are. Once your emotions have been set free, true relaxation can occur. It feels like the calm after the storm.
This meditation technique is one of the best antidotes for insomnia, depression, apathy and stress. It’s generally good for mental health, the nervous system, blood pressure, the heart and digestion. Using breath awareness and control, it engages all the chakras and allows an even distribution of prana throughout the entire body, promoting an optimum state of health.
Practise this meditation as often as you can, though not more than twice a day. After doing it just once, many people report experiencing the sort of deep, restful sleep that they haven’t enjoyed for years. Keep your eyes closed throughout to create maximum awareness of the energy in your body.
1 Sit on your heels, keeping your back straight. Relax your shoulders. Close your eyes and let your breath flow into your body. Bring your awareness into yourself as you inhale down to your root chakra and exhale upward into your head. The bottom and the top of your spine are aligned, and your root chakra is aligned with your crown chakra. Feel this connection.
2 Place your hands around your waist, with your forefingers pointing toward each other in front of your body and your thumbs pointing in the opposite direction. Your elbows are out to the sides.
3 Using ujayi breathing and keeping the tip of your tongue on the roof of your mouth, allow your breath to pass through the opening at the back of your throat.
4 Start to inhale for the count of one, two, three, four; hold for the count of five, six, seven, eight; then exhale for the count of seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Do not force the breath – just allow it to pass gently and evenly. Repeat this eight times.
5 Now remove your hands from the waist and rest them in a comfortable position. Inhale and exhale deeply. Take another deep breath in. Exhale deeply. Take another deep breath in. Again, exhale deeply. Keep your eyes gently closed.
6 Now for the next phase: With a sharp inhalation, for ‘one’ throw your hands up, arms straight, palms facing each other and fingertips engaged and active. This allows your upper lungs to open and feeds your respiratory system with fresh oxygen. Imagine you are trying to lift your diaphragm and your back upward through the side of your ribcage.
7 Exhale and on ‘two’ bring your hands back over your shoulders, elbows still bent, palms facing the back of your neck and fingers between your shoulder blades.
8 Now repeat this movement for the next 24 rounds of breath. After 24 rounds continue even faster if you can, synchronizing your breath with movement for another ten rounds of breath.
9 Inhale deeply and slowly, raising your arms up for the count of two, exhaling for the count of two. Repeat 24 times.
10 Release your arms down. Inhale deeply and exhale deeply. As you exhale, experience the openness, the vitality, the energy in your body, the sense of letting go, the sense of self-awareness, the feelings, the emotions, the sensations that arise in your head and your body.
11 Inhale into openness and vitality and inner space. Try to connect with your body and how you feel.
12 When you have completed the meditation, take 5 minutes (lie down if you can) to enjoying your inner space and openness, focusing equal awareness on your whole body and making sure that your whole body breathes to one heartbeat.
I sent my mind to get me a message
With my senses.
How did I know that my mind wouldn’t disappear,
Taking my senses and getting lost in them?
I lost my senses, I lost my mind.
I don’t know how to align.
YOGI ASHOKANANDA
LEVEL: ORANGE
This final practice can be done any time but is particularly effective after the Science of Relaxation™ meditation, as it connects your third eye (the seat of your ego) to your belly button (the root of your existence). You can now experience total relaxation, resting in a state of total you. Through this exercise you can shake off any false identity that you have assumed and feel completely confident in yourself.
1 Lie down comfortably and close your eyes. Inhale gently into your third eye. As the inhalation continues, gently direct your breath down to your belly button so the end of your inhalation ends there.
2 As you exhale, in your mind observe your breath as it travels up from your belly button and ends at your third eye.
3 Continue with this cycle for 10 minutes, keeping your eye muscles soft and relaxed, and your inhalation and exhalation natural and spontaneous.
