Raj's Yoga Blog

The following is a letter that Sri Apa Pant wrote to his daughter on November 14, 1968: Those who should know, speak of mediation as "mindfulness", Krishnamurthy calls it "choiceless awareness".    Of meditation it is also said that it is "no-meditation". When you reach the normal, natural state of consciousness within yourself, you are in meditation. It is further said that when you are functioning in the day-to-day world with your senses in contact with sense-objects like seeing, hearing, tasting, smelling etc. your consciousness should be all the time within you.    When I was talking to a high lama from Tibet, the most reverend Khentse Rinpoche in Gangtok, he once said that to meditate is to rest your mind between two thoughts. When a thought has vanished and another thought is yet to arise, in that interval you can realize the supreme consciousness, or Samadhi. The longer  the period of silence between one thought and another, the more you can b...

Find out if you breathe correctly: Sit on a chair/stool, preferably cross-legged on floor. If you have to do this standing up, that’s fine too. Close your eyes and keep them closed throughout the process. But close your eyes after reading rest of the instructions. Gently place your hands – one over the other – over your abdomen. Now take a few deep breaths. Gently inhale and exhale. Keep your mouth closed. Find your breath – your breathing should be deep but gentle and through the nose. Now observe your inhalation – does your abdomen go in or come out? If you can’t feel it, press your abdomen a little harder with your hands. If with every inhalation, your abdomen is going inwards (falling in) you are breathing incorrectly. The correct way to breathe is: with every inhalation, your abdomen should come out (rise) and with every exhalation, it should go in (fall). How to correct your breathing: Don’t be disheartened if you just found out you breathe incorrectly. With c...