David Whyte on the Power of Listening

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“All this petty worry while the great cloak of the sky grows dark and intense ‘round every living thing. What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence… Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born… All those years listening to those who had nothing to say. All those years forgetting how everything has its own voice to make itself heard. All those years forgetting how easily you can belong to everything simply by listening.”

— David Whyte, The Winter of Listening

Lifestyle & Daily Practices Anchoring us in Meditation

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We watched Your Real Nature | What are You | Swami Sarvapriyananda

Continuing on the subject of: How to we remember our true nature in the midst of daily life? In this talk, Swami Sarvapriyananda reminds us:
You are Awareness. In Awareness you are aware of the thoughts and feelings in the mind. Through the thoughts and feelings in the mind, you are aware of the body with the senses, and through that you are aware of the world.

Antaha Karana is a concept in the Vedic tradition referring to the totality of the mind, including the thinking faculty, the sense of I-ness, and the discriminating faculty. Another description says that antaḥkaraṇa refers to the entire psychological process, including mind and emotions, are composing the mind levels that seem to obscure our true nature, the witness of all experience.

In Vedāntic literature, this antaḥkaraṇa (internal organ) is organised into four parts.

  1. Ahankara (ego)—identifies self with the body as ‘I’. The attachment or identification of the ego, also known as the ‘I-maker’.
  2. Buddhi (intellect)—the decision-making part of the mind. The part that is able to discern truth from falsehood and thereby to make wisdom possible.
  3. Manas (mind)—the lower, rational part of the mind that connects with the external world, and controls sankalpa (will or resolution). It is also the faculty of doubt and volition; seat of desire and governor of sensory and motor organs.
  4. Chitta (memory)—the consciousness where impressions, memories and experiences are stored; the part that deals with remembering and forgetting.

A silent meditation practice is simply an aspect of this intention to remember our true nature. We come together, to “just sit”. We listen to the silence. We listen to our thoughts, We listen to our feelings and emotions. When we “just sit” we just BE the witnessing awareness. And this continues as we get off our mats or chairs and DO what needs to be done to live the dailiness of our lives. The BEing and DOing, the inhalation and exhalation and the gaps in between, Having this understanding empowers us to choose the lens we perceive and experience our lives with. “Just sitting”, silent meditation, reveals the layers that veil the clarity and luminosity of our true nature and the gap between these layers. Glimpses of the background, the ground of awareness, reminds us to rest in our true nature that is the witness to all experience. 

Rupert Spira on Going Back to Your Essential Nature

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“When you feel depressed, what is to be done? Simply go back to your essential nature. Trace your way back, disentangle yourself from the content of experience in which you have lost yourself—in your own activity of thinking and perceiving, like an actor who temporarily loses himself in the part he is playing. What is to be done? He just needs to trace his way back to himself. That’s all you need to do right now. Even in the midst of a deep depression, the nature of your mind is clear.”

—Rupert Spira

Swami Sarvapriyananda on Being Awareness

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Subhobrata Chakravorti, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

“You are Awareness. In Awareness you are aware of the thoughts and feelings in the mind. Through the thoughts and feelings in the mind, you are aware of the body with the senses, and through that you are aware of the world. “

— Swami Sarvapriyananda

Rupert Spira on the Two Types of Silence

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Awareness, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

“There are two types of silence: the absence of sound and thought, and the silence behind that absence, or the silence behind the silence. Rest as that. Notice the expectation: something will change and then you will be happy… An efficient teaching does not fulfil expectations, but dissolves them, revealing that we are already the happiness for which we long… When expectations come to an end, the great silence remains.”

— Rupert Spira

Lifestyle & Daily Practices Anchoring us in Meditation

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We come together, to “just sit”. We listen to the silence. We listen to our thoughts, We listen to our feelings and emotions. Not concentration, only awareness of all the arisings…And catch glimpses of a gap…a silent gap between two thoughts.

Too many thoughts, the monkey mind, veils the gap.

Multiple methods and techniques in various traditions are all aids to “settle the mind” so we get established in steadier glimpses of the “gap”, the sky behind the clouds, the screen behind the movie, our true nature. When we “just sit”.

Pranayama or Breathwork is one such tool that helps immensely when incorporated in a daily routine. 

We have shared 2 Pranayama’s thus far: (Below, I share from a workbook from the Ayurveda Institute)

1. BRAHMARI or BEE’s BREATH

Brahmari in Sanskrit translates to bumble bee. In this prānāyāma, we are mimicking the sound of a bee buzzing, by closing off all of our senses and creating a humming sound. The “Bee’s Breath” soothes the nerves and calms the mind. During this practice, the breath makes a steady, low pitched ‘hum’ sound at the back of the throat on the exhale (like the humming of a bee). The bee goes to the flower and creates a humming. sound around the flower, and the flower opens its heart allowing the bee to get the pollen. There’s a beautiful romance going on between the flower and honeybee. Likewise, in mankind there is a beautiful lotus behind the breastbone. Through bhrāmarī prānāyāma the lotus blooms more and secretes divine nectar. It unfolds the love divine. Hum is the bīja of the ether element. Therefore, bhrāmarī breath unfolds the ether element in all bodily channels. It removes the occlusion of the channels so energy and prāna can flow freely.

Benefits • Calms and soothes the mind and nervous system • Helps with throat and thyroid ailments • Relieves stress and anger • Reduces blood pressure • Induces good sleep • Improves the function of the thyroid, parathyroid, and thymus gland to support immune function

Contraindications • None

Progression Bhrāmarī is to be practiced with 1 round. It is important to note that is imperative your spine remain straight. Start off with a round of 7, slowly progressing up to a total of 17.

2. ANULOMA VILOMA or Alternate Nostril Breathing (Yogic)

Anuloma Viloma is considered the king of all prānāyāmas. It merges the right and left brain hemispheres into the diencephalon—the place of choiceless, passive awareness. It is said to “unfold the inner blissful state of being.” Anuloma Viloma means to and fro, prograde and retrograde, to come and go, the up and down, in and out movement of prāna. Lunar energy is offered to the Sun and solar energy is offered to the Moon. Male energy is merging into female and female and into male, Ardhanareeswarar. When we offer male into female and female into male, a neutral zone is created.

Benefits • Reduces depression and migraines • Clears the sinuses • Brings high levels of vitality to visceral organs • Regulates agni • Decreases cholesterol • Strengthens immune system • Brings clarity to the mind, inducing contentment and serenity

Indications • Depression • Migraines • Blocked sinuses • Poor digestion • High cholesterol • Insomnia

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Progression Anuloma Viloma is to be practiced with 2 rounds with a rest of 2-3 minutes between each round. Begin with 2 rounds of 7. Slowly increase your practice until you reach 2 rounds of 30 each. This may take a few months to reach this point. Do not feel discouraged.

Vasant Lad on Listening

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“Listen completely to the call of a bird, the cry of a child. Listen to every sound that comes to you, without liking it, disliking it or judging it. When peace listens to the sound, there is no judgement.”

— Vasant Lad

Buzzing Bee’s Breath (Brahmari Pranayama)

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A practical tool from the Yogic tradition was shared as an aid to alleviate anxiety and stress. Sometimes, aids to sitting meditation can be very helpful to calm the mind. this is one such tool. 

Brahmari in Sanskrit translates to bumble bee. In this prānāyāma, we are mimicking the sound of a bee buzzing, by closing off all of our senses and creating a humming sound. The “Bee’s Breath” soothes the nerves and calms the mind. During this practice, the breath makes a steady, low pitched ‘hum’ sound at the back of the throat on the exhale (like the humming of a bee). The bee goes to the flower and creates a humming 4 sound around the flower, and the flower opens its heart allowing the bee to get the pollen. There’s a beautiful romance going on between the flower and honeybee. Likewise, in the subtle body of humans per the yogic sciences, there is a beautiful lotus behind the breastbone. Through bhrāmarī prānāyāma the lotus blooms more and secretes divine nectar. Hum is the bīja-root sound of the ether element. Therefore, bhrāmarī breath unfolds the ether element in all bodily channels. It removes the occlusion of the channels so energy and prāna can flow freely.

Benefits:

  • Calms and soothes the mind and nervous system
  • Helps with throat and thyroid ailments
  • Relieves stress and anger
  • Reduces blood pressure
  • Induces good sleep
  • Improves the function of the thyroid, parathyroid, and thymus gland to support immune function
  • Stimulates the pineal and pituitary glands
  • Stimulates secretion of tryptophan, serotonin, melatonin, acetylcholine, and dopamine
  • Harmonizes the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems
  • Mind is dissolved into pure consciousness.

Is it Possible to Live Free of Anxiety?

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by Rupert Spira

Is it possible to live free of anxiety? Rupert is asked this common question by someone who says that they approach so many life situations with a feeling of anxiety because it feels like ”I am the one doing this” or ‘I need to get it right”. Rupert suggests that we are actually already completely free of anxiety, and that it is indeed possible to live a life free of anxiety. Rupert goes on to say that our anxious habits relax or subside during other activities such as attending a retreat. This is evidence that our being, or the presence of awareness, is emerging from the background of our experience and that our identity is shifting from ‘I, the anxious person’ to ‘I, awareness’. This clip was taken from the 7 Day In-Person Retreat at the Mercy Center: The Silence Which Beckons Us Into Ourselves which took place from October 23 – 31, 2021.

Timestamps: 00:00 Awareness Pervades Everything 1:13 Habit of Feeling Anxious 2:25 Living Without Emotional Resistance 3:00 You Are Already Free Of Anxiety 3:55 Shifting Your Identity from Anxious to Awareness

Dogen Zenji on Just Sitting

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Shii, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

“Just sitting, with no deliberate thought, is the important aspect of serene reflection meditation.”

— Dogen Zenji