Thus far, we have focused on returning to balance by restoring our neurohormonal pathways through regulating our lifestyles. Now we come to the stage in the program where we turn our attention within. The work we do from here on will focus on the subtle and causal bodies.
Recall that the basis of suffering is a misapprehension of our true nature that arises from the neurohormonal superhighways we have created throughout our lives that have become our habits. Not only do these habits make us do things in certain ways, but they make us think and believe in certain ways that keep us bound to the body-mind as our true identity. They obscure the fact that bliss is our true nature. Let us examine what types of electrical signals in the brain are responsible for this veil that hides us from who we really are.
Brain Waves in Bliss and Stress
If we hooked your brain up with a set of special sensors, we would be able to record its activity and be able to see the following types of electrical activity corresponding to what you are thinking and feeling:
Beta Waves
Ranging from 12–38 Hz (Hertz, a measure of frequency in one cycle per second), we’d see this during most of your waking hours as you engage with the world. When we see beta waves, we see that you are alert, solving problems, making decisions, attentive, and focused. As they get higher in frequency, we would deduce that you are now getting anxious, worried, conflicted, or agitated.
Alpha Waves
We would see these waves ranging from 8–12 Hz if you were very relaxed and still focused. These waves tell us that your thoughts are flowing quietly; you are calm, coordinated, and learning new things or absorbed in something that is of great interest, such as a good book or movie.
Theta Waves
Still slower at 3–8 Hz, theta waves on your brainwave recording tell us that you are either fast asleep or in deep meditation, where you are withdrawn from the world and focused on what you see within. This is also what we’d see when you are about to fall asleep or wake up (the twilight zone, as it is called) and when you are dreaming. This frequency level is where your deepest creativity, fears, troubles, and insights lie, even though you may not be conscious of them. Your sudden “lightbulb” moments come from this frequency. If you can learn to access this frequency consciously, your brain will produce endorphins, those feel-good hormones (The Stress Cauldron).
Delta Waves
As we continue to record your brainwave activity, we might come across these ultra-low frequency waves. At 0.5–3 Hz, their appearance tells us that either you are in deep, dreamless sleep or have become detached from the world to revel in your own blissful true nature. This brainwave is deeply healing and restorative, which is why you can fall ill when you don’t get enough sleep. It is during the period of this brainwave activity that several beneficial hormones, such as the human growth hormone and melatonin, are released.
Gamma Waves
At 38–42 Hz these brainwaves are the subtlest and highest frequency of all, and if we see this on your tracing, they indicate bliss that radiates to the world in the form of universal love.
By studying brainwaves, we see that each of us has access to all of them. The problem is that the alpha, theta, delta, and gamma waves happen kind of accidentally or in sleep states when we aren’t aware of them. The noise of the beta waves keeps the others obscured, since they reside in the realm of silence. In order to access them consciously, we have to cultivate inner silence. Meditation is the tool to cultivate inner silence and reveal the gifts held within.
Numerous studies have indicated that meditation can result in cardiovascular benefit, including the response to stress, smoking cessation, blood pressure reduction, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, endothelial function, lack of blood flow to the heart muscle, and prevention of heart disease or additional events after heart attacks. In September 2017 the American Heart Association released a statement that meditation, being a low-cost intervention, could be incorporated along with other lifestyle modifications, with the caveat that larger, more unbiased studies are needed.39 In the resources section I have listed several organizations where meditation can be learned and practiced. In this chapter I provide the technique that I’ve used personally and taught for many years.
What Is Meditation?
Despite the seeming explosion of meditation in modern culture, there seems to be a lot of confusion about what it is, being used interchangeably for thinking, daydreaming, or for contemplating a particular issue. With lack of a cohesive understanding about what meditation is, it can naturally lead to confusion about how to practice it and what it is really supposed to do.
Meditation is the precise and systematic technique of allowing the mind to rest in stillness for specific periods of time every day. The purpose of meditation is to dip deep into ourselves to find the bliss that lies hidden under the various states of mind that the brainwaves represent. As we continue to practice, we begin to access the frequencies representing creativity, expansiveness, forgiveness, peace, health, and bliss. Over time, the bliss within begins to radiate outward in the form of universal love, represented by the gamma waves. Before we get into the practice, let us explore some common myths and misunderstandings about meditation:
Myth #1: All meditation techniques are the same.
Response: No. Every technique gives us access to particular brainwaves. There is no one technique that is better than others. It all depends on what we are trying to achieve and how it works for you.
Myth #2: It’s enough to meditate once in a while.
Response: Not if we are trying to cultivate inner silence. Just as it is not enough to exercise once in a while to benefit from its positive effects, it takes practice and diligence to cultivate inner silence.
Myth #3: Meditation leads to constant peace and bliss from the get-go.
Response: No. Although meditation will have an immediate calming effect, it often causes friction as it brings up unconscious stuff hidden in our causal bodies. As we gain access to the particular frequencies corresponding to those issues, there can be discomfort in the body-mind, such as irritability, sadness, or anxiety. If this happens, we just scale back on the practice for a few days, knowing that these are actually good signs. We can’t work on issues that we can’t see, which is the problem with our issues that are hidden from our awareness. When they surface, they invite us to look at them as the cause of our suffering. We can then work through those issues through self-inquiry (see Find Bliss in the Body).
Myth #4: One doesn’t need any other practice; meditation is it.
Response: It depends on what we are aiming for. For stress relief, lowering blood pressure, inflammation and other markers, better sleep, positive outcomes of disease, and a more wholesome perspective on life, meditation is enough. However, these outcomes remain in the default model, where we remain identified as the body-mind. If we want a shift in our identity to the bliss of our true nature, it may not be enough. This is because cultivating inner silence is the key for the advanced practices of self-inquiry and body sensing (Cultivate Clarity
of Perception and Find Bliss in the Body), which will not be effective without it. These advanced practices break through our stubborn clinging to our limited body-minds and allow us to realize our true nature. This is why meditation is the central and dominant practice of this program. Balancing agni through a regular routine and lifestyle modifications fosters meditation and vice versa.
Myth #5: Meditation is a religious exercise.
Response: Although there are some faith-based meditation practices, the most prevalent and well-studied ones are secular and universally applicable. The technique you will learn here is from Yoga, which is not a religion but a precise science of our inner landscape. You just have to put the technique to test in your own experience.
Now that we have a definition of meditation, let us see when and how to practice it. The technique I practice and teach in my program is called Deep Meditation and is from Advanced Yoga Practices.40 I had tried dozens of other techniques before coming across Deep Meditation. Within a very short time of practicing this technique, my life began to change in various ways. The beauty of this technique is its sheer simplicity and applicability. It can be practiced by anyone.41
A Note on Children
In general, certain other types of meditation, such as focusing on the breath, is easier and gentler on children because of the issues described under myth #3. A certain degree of emotional maturity is helpful to deal with unconscious issues when they surface, which children may not be capable of. Hence, the recommendation is to wait until puberty to learn Deep Meditation.
When to Practice Meditation
We can use our knowledge about the circadian rhythms to figure out when to meditate (see Kindle the Fire). Recall that vata is dominant in the early hours of the morning until about 6 a.m., and that its subtle actions are more evident on the mind than in the body. It governs creativity, enthusiasm, and cognitive abilities, which peak during vata times. Meditating during this period is thus very effective.
We meditate approximately every twelve hours, in sync with our internal clocks. Meditation resets our functioning at a higher level, which we carry into our daily lives. This higher level of functioning fades over several hours, after which we meditate again. By syncing our practices with our internal clocks, we reset them at a higher level of functioning over time. Thus, we sit again in the evening, preferably before dinner. If this is not possible due to busy evening schedules, my recommendation is to eat early and meditate a few hours later, closer to bedtime. However, don’t meditate in bed with the intention of falling asleep immediately after. Meditation is meant to prepare us for activity so that the inner silence we cultivate in the practice is established in daily life. Meditating right before bed can cause sleep disturbances since the body-mind is revved up for activity.
Even though the best times for meditation are early in the morning and about twelve hours later, keep in mind that it is still highly effective when practiced at any time of the day. So if you can’t practice at these preferred times, you will gain the same benefits as long as you practice at all. The most important thing to remember here is to practice with regularity. As long as you fit it into your schedule, you will make great progress.
It is best to meditate on an empty stomach so that the effort of the practice doesn’t interfere with digestion. If you’re really hungry, a small piece of fruit a half hour before meditation would be okay on occasion. However, try to not make it a habit.
Women can meditate while on their periods. In fact, the mind is much more quiet during the cycle, which enables deeper meditation and greater insights in advanced practices.
As you get established in a daily practice of meditation, continue to apply the principles of regularity and lifestyle that are described in the previous chapters. They will aid the development of a balanced mind and outlook that will in turn help you become established in meditation. The very discipline of meditation will regulate your neurohormonal pathways, which will gently nudge you toward a lifestyle conducive to bliss.
How to Practice Meditation
The Deep Meditation technique is based on mantra. A mantra is a phrase or word that when repeated has the power to transform us from within. The mantra in Deep Meditation is I Am, and it is used entirely for its vibratory properties and not for its meaning. The vibrations of the phrase dig deep into our nervous system to rewire our neurohormonal pathways as we access the various brainwaves. Even as it transforms our neurobiology, the mantra pulls us deeper and deeper into the inner recesses of our beings where we come to rest in the bliss and silence of pure awareness. As we get progressively established in inner silence, we naturally begin to wonder about who we really are. The mantra thus facilitates self-inquiry through the cultivation of inner silence.
Here is a breakdown of the practice:
Sitting
The first priority is to make yourself as comfortable as possible to minimize distractions and wanting to shift around. At the same time, your posture must be held gently erect to enable the free flow of prana. So seat yourself either on a chair with a back or on the floor.
Sitting on a Chair: Have both your feet flat on the floor and scooch your back all the way to the back. Let your sit bones ground into the seat, leaving the spine comfortably erect. Your belly is comfortably pulled back to support your spine. Relax your shoulders and place your hands in your lap.
Sitting on the Floor: Sit in any comfortable position. You can try a padded meditation cushion for sitting on the floor. If you are flexible and can easily sit cross-legged or in lotus or half lotus poses, try this pose known as siddhasana (perfected pose) or ardha siddhasana (half of siddhasana). Sit cross-legged on a cushion and bring your left heel under your perineum (the spot between the anus and genitals). If you can, bring your right heel to rest on the pubic bone, the one in the center of the pelvis. This is siddhasana. If you can’t or it is too uncomfortable, bend your right leg at the knee and rest it wherever it feels comfortable. This is ardha siddhasana. Often, it helps to have another thin cushion under the tailbone when it becomes comfortable to keep the spine erect. If either of these two poses is too uncomfortable, forget them and sit in an easy pose. In all instances, ground through the sit bones and allow the spine to remain comfortably erect, with your belly supporting it.
Siddhasana (and ardha siddhasana) stimulate the energy center at the base of the spine in the perineum, allowing for the free flow of prana in the subtle body. If you’d like to gain its benefits without the pose, sitting either on the floor or on a chair, you can use a rolled up sock or a soft ball under the perineum and a thin cushion under the tailbone for comfort.
Over time, you will be able to meditate in any posture, even while lying down. For now, however, follow the sitting instructions to get into the practice.
Close your eyes gently and take a couple of deep breaths, relaxing your body with each exhalation. Notice your stream of thoughts. Now let go of the breath.
Gently introduce the mantra I Am by silently thinking it. Listen to its sound by gently focusing on it. When the sound fades, repeat it silently again. Continue to repeat it, waiting for the sound to fade each time. Go at your own pace and rhythm. Especially in the beginning, your attention will drift off into your stream of thoughts and you might start thinking of your grocery list, what you should have said to your friend yesterday, your to-do list for today, a beachside vacation you want to take, and so on. Whenever you realize that your focus is no longer on the sound of the mantra, gently bring it back. Think of it like a baby that keeps spitting out his pacifier and crying to have it back. You gently give it back to him instead of asking him not to cry. Similarly, you favor the mantra instead of trying to force out the other thoughts, which you can never quite do successfully. In this technique, we trick the mind by giving it the mantra as a pacifier to hang on to. Continue this practice for about 15–20 minutes.
When 15–20 minutes are up, keep your eyes closed, let go of the mantra, and rest for about 5–10 minutes. If possible, lie down on your back, using pillows under the head and knees, if needed, for comfort. Let the mind do what it wants to do. Resting is very important in this practice because during deep meditation there is much going on in the subtle body. Whether we feel it or not, there is a sort of scrubbing taking place to loosen and release the deep-seated obstructions that keep us feeling like we are limited body-minds (see myth #3). Resting allows these obstructions to dissolve before we get up and go about our daily life. Resting also allows integration of the inner silence we have just cultivated into the activity we will move on to.
If you begin to experience irritability, restlessness, or discomfort during daily activities, it might be because you are not resting enough after meditation. If you are resting about 10 minutes and are still experiencing these symptoms, it may be a sign that 15–20 minutes of meditation may be too much for you. Try to cut back to 10–15 minutes or even further until you get to a point of feeling good. The reason for the discomfort is that this is a powerful practice that is meant to dislodge the veils that keep us bound to suffering. Ripping these veils all at once is like ripping a tight, sticky bandage off the skin after a wound heals.
Frequently Asked Questions About Meditation
Some questions come up quite frequently when we begin the practice. The following are some of them.42
Question: What exactly is inner silence, and how does meditation help cultivate it?
Response: The purpose of meditation is to cultivate inner silence. Inner silence is the timeless gap between thoughts, which is available to us throughout the day and frames the doorway to our true nature. Since this is always available, we do not create anything new with meditation; we only become adept at recognizing what already is and has always been. By returning again and again to the object of meditation, the mantra, we cultivate one-pointedness of the mind. The ordinary state of mind is that of diffusion, where multiple and conflicting trains of thought are running at the same time. One-pointedness is the process by which the mind comes to focus on a single object. As we progress, the object becomes increasingly refined to where it is picked up at subtler and subtler levels. The silent gap between repetitions increases, not because the gap is invented (it always is) but because the combination of one-pointedness and refinement leads to its predominance over thoughts.
Question: How long will it take for me to get there?
Response: The most accurate answer is “as long as it will take.” There is no timeline for progress in meditation because it is dependent upon our individual makeup of tendencies consisting of our personalities, upbringing, culture, influences, desires, emotional imprints, and repressed and suppressed issues that make up the subtle and causal bodies. In general, the initial results of calmness, reduced stress, health benefits, and sleep regulation occur relatively early, within a few months. The glimpse into our true blissful nature, on the other hand, can take longer, depending upon the particular issues we need to work on through advanced practices like self-inquiry. Technically, however, there is no “there” to get to. As Yogani says, “The journey is from here to here.”43
Question: I’m not really sure what must happen while meditating. Can you elaborate?
Response: The truth is that every single practice will be unique. While one practice session may be “deep,” with relatively fewer thoughts, the next one may be “mind-y,” where it feels like no progress was made. It is important to remember that no sitting practice is futile; simply making the time and effort to sit still is a worthwhile endeavor every single time. Meditation works on the neurobiology (consisting not only of the brain and the nervous system but also the subtle and causal bodies) at various levels: at the surface level of thoughts and mind one day and the deeper level the next day. Thus, there is no set thing that “must” happen during any given sitting practice. The beauty of this unpredictability is that it makes us more pliant and forces us to let go of control, an all-important necessity at later stages of spiritual practice.
Question: What is the sign of success in meditation?
Response: The only true sign of success in meditation is what happens in daily life. Whether one attains depth in meditation or not is irrelevant if their life is not being transformed because of the practice. This transformation occurs slowly but surely, often first noticed by those around us. Transformation becomes evident in the subtle ways in which we carry ourselves, behave with others, and handle day-to-day matters. Success is noticed when old patterns of reactivity, judgment, and ill will begin to fall away, and we have an increasingly greater capacity to look beyond our narrow selves. It is important to remember that these changes occur whether or not we are achieving perfectly still minds in meditation. Furthermore, achieving a perfectly still mind in meditation is a well-propagated myth. Yes, there are times when this does occur, but this is neither common nor
necessary to make progress.
Question: Of all the nuances (posture, timing, duration, and so on), what is the most important factor for progress?
Response: The most important factor is the deliberate cultivation of the habit to meditate. This is the most challenging factor for most of us in the context of already busy lives and overcommitted schedules. It does take effort to make time to practice every day and to adjust our lifestyles to accommodate this. However, this great self-effort is eventually replaced by the meditation taking over the effort and directing itself. This, too, happens without a set timeline. Unfortunately, most people quit before this magical shift occurs. The key is to keep up the practice and have faith that it is working. This applies to any meditation technique: give it enough time (at least a few months) before deeming it a “failure.”
Question: What if I don’t have 20 minutes to practice? Should I just skip practice that day?
Response: Since cultivating the habit is critical, it is best to meditate for at least a few minutes when short on time. In the same vein, if you are running around and can’t sit in your favored spot to meditate, make it a habit to sit for a few minutes elsewhere. Meditate in your parked car before you walk in to work or when you are waiting to pick up your children from school or an activity, in your office before hitting the road, on a park bench before meeting up with friends for dinner, and so on. Be resourceful in finding opportunities so that it becomes a habit, like brushing your teeth.
Question: My mind is so busy during meditation! Does this mean that it is not for me?
Response: This is a common problem for all meditators, particularly when beginning the practice. While we are trying to cultivate inner silence, there seems to be an opposite effect where the mind seems to come alive when we are sitting in practice. Even experienced meditators run into this issue time and again. The reasons for this vary and depend to some extent upon the particular stage of the journey we are in and mostly upon our body-mind makeup with respect to the combination of gunas (sattva, rajas, and tamas). For instance, someone with a predominantly rajasic makeup has an overactive mind streaming with thoughts that run in multiple directions at the same time, while one with a tamasic mind may struggle with laziness during the practice. The good news is that continued meditation practice results in the gradual evolution of gunas, where the mind becomes progressively more sattvic, making it most conducive to deep meditation.
At various stages of the journey, the causes for our mind’s agitation may differ; this is completely normal. In the beginning, mental noise may relate to obsessing about the details of the technique, worrying about not doing it right or not being relaxed enough, or thoughts of daily life (the grocery list, dinner plans, the lunch menu, memories of the past, plans for the future, and so on). At later stages, the noise of the surface mind has been quieted enough for the churning of the unconscious mind to become evident. Repressed emotions and trauma, memories of early childhood, and suppressed anger, rage, and anxieties that were deeply hidden from conscious awareness begin to surface. For some, the subconscious mind is active from the get-go, and the jumble of thoughts that come up relate to contents of both the repressed and the surface mind.
Ultimately, however, overanalyzing gunas or the mind’s tricks are counterproductive and unnecessary. For our sitting practices to be effective, what we do outside of these practice times can be highly beneficial. As we will see in the next chapter, decluttering our lives takes on a different meaning from the standpoint of enabling meditation and progress along the path to bliss.
Summary
- The various types of electrical activity in our brains correspond to what we are thinking and feeling.
- Generally, the beta waves that correspond to our activities of daily life obscure the beneficial effects of the alpha, theta, delta, and gamma waves that are active at lower degrees of mental noise and reside in the realm of silence.
- Meditation is the tool to cultivate inner silence, which gives us access to these waves.
- Meditation is the precise and systematic technique of allowing the mind to rest in stillness for specific periods of time every day.
- Deep Meditation uses the mantra I Am as the tool for accessing inner silence.
- For maximum effectiveness, meditation must be practiced twice a day for 15–20 minutes, followed by resting for 5–10 minutes. In the beginning, cultivating the habit is the most essential piece of the practice.
- If you begin to experience irritability, restlessness, or discomfort during daily activities, it might be because you are not resting enough after meditation. The reason for the discomfort is that meditation can bring hidden issues into our conscious awareness.
- If you are resting about 10 minutes and are still experiencing these symptoms, it may be a sign that 15–20 minutes of meditation may be too much for you. Try to cut back to 10–15 minutes or even further until you get to a point of feeling good.
39. G. L. Levine, R. A. Lange, et al., “Meditation and cardiovascular risk reduction,” J Am Heart Assoc (28 September 2017), https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.117.002218.
40. Yogani, Advanced Yoga Practices, http://aypsite.com/.
41. The Deep Meditation technique is the core practice of my Bliss Meditation Course (kavithamd.com/bliss-meditation-course), which is a free program consisting of various techniques described in this book along with ongoing support.
42. Yogani, Deep Meditation: Pathway to Personal Freedom (AYP Publishing, 2005).
43. Yogani, Advanced Yoga Practices, http://aypsite.com/.