by Rolf Sovik
The sushumna channel itself is sensed as a lightning-like thread of energy or light. As awareness travels along this passageway, the channel is cleansed and the energy along its length is gently strengthened. As you practice, you will find that you are naturally more inclined to sit erect, and the power of your concentration is improved.
After traveling down and up the spine for a number of breaths, with a final inhalation awareness is drawn from the base of the spine to the ajna chakra, the eyebrow center. There it will rest as you continue to breathe naturally. The eyebrow center is the place assigned for the practice of the soham mantra. As you rest there, relax your mind in the mantra and let its sound fill your mind.
There are no further steps or preparations. Now your mind can move more and more deeply into the stillness of the mantra, and meditation unfolds to its fullest.
(Note: If you have received a personal mantra for meditation, you may also have been given a different spinal center as the focus for concentration. In that case, the final inhalation along the spine should be to the chakra you normally use for practice. Once there, begin the repetition of your personal mantra.)
The Eyebrow Center
“Where is the eyebrow center, precisely?” you may ask. There are two answers to this question. To locate it approximately in your head, mentally draw two intersecting lines. The first line extends from the base of the spine to the crown of the head. All the spinal centers lie along this axis. The second line travels inward from the space between the two eyebrows. The place where this latter line intersects the spinal axis is the eyebrow center.
But the eyebrow center can be located in a more subtle manner as well. This is accomplished not by sensing it as a geographical location in the head but as a place in the mind. The eyebrow center is the place in the mind where thought first becomes audible to awareness. It is the place in the mind where you hear your inner voice.
Imagine a large, darkened room that is empty except for a single speaker, from which music plays. The sounds of the speaker fill the space of the room. The darkness of the room makes it impossible to see the speaker, but by relaxing and listening attentively, you can gradually distinguish the location of the speaker. There, the speaker reveals its sounds most clearly.
The mind is that space. Thoughts arise in it, like sound playing from a speaker. The point where a thought first becomes audible to awareness—where one’s inner voice arises—is the eyebrow center. It is at that place that the sound soham arises in your mind.
A Complete Practice
Here, then, is a meditation combining all the essential elements of meditation and leading to a relaxed focus in the mantra soham at the eyebrow center. Begin your practice by including steps 1 to 8; then practice steps 1 to 13; and finally include all the steps. With practice, the entire meditation will flow smoothly from beginning to end.
1. Rest in your meditation posture.
2. Breathe diaphragmatically and let your breath become smooth and unbroken.
3. Relax briefly from head to toes and toes to head. Simply let your awareness travel through your body. Release tensions while you continue to breathe smoothly and evenly. When you have returned to the top of the head, relax and breathe as if the whole body breathes.
4. Practice one or more rounds of nadi shodhanam.
5. Now feel the breath at the nostrils. Gradually establish a relaxed focus there. Let each breath flow smoothly into the next and feel the transitions in the breath as well as the breaths themselves.
6. Next, relax your mind and begin to recite the mantra soham. During the inhalation, let the sound “so . . .” resonate in your mind. During the exhalation, hear the sound “hum. . . .” Each sound flows through the length of the entire breath.
7. Do not alter your breathing in order to accommodate the pace of the mantra. Let the breath flow at its natural pace and hear the sounds of the mantra as if they were accompanying it.
8. Soon your breathing will relax and will become only the faintest background to concentration. The mantra, sounding in your mind, will serve as the calm center of your awareness.
9. Briefly, feel the breath flowing in each nostril and then merge these two streams into a single, central stream. Breathe from the base of the nostrils inward to the eyebrow center (the place where the sound of the mantra arises) and from the eyebrow center back to the base of the nostrils. Continue for five to ten breaths.
10. Next, inhale to the eyebrow center and exhale down to the base of the spine with the sound hum.... Then inhale to the crown of the head with the sound so. . . .
11. Travel back and forth between the base of the spine and the crown of the head for five to ten breaths (or longer, if you like). You are traveling down and up a threadlike column of light or energy. As you move, rest in the sound of the mantra.
12. Next, with an inhalation, ascend to the eyebrow center.Rest your awareness there and let the sound of the breath, soham, fill your mind.
13. As you rest in the mantra, let other thoughts come and go without giving them new energy—without shifting your attention toward them. When the mind does wander off, don’t condemn or criticize yourself. Simply return to your focus and again rest in the sound of the mantra. Gradually you will find that your effort relaxes and your attention is centered.
14. After a number of minutes resting in the sound, you may find that you are able to step back—to witness your mind, which is centered in the sound of the mantra. The mantra will fill your conscious mind and provide a deep resting place for your awareness. Distracting thoughts will feel less disturbing. And even as thoughts continue to come and go in the mind, you will sense a quiet shift in your awareness. You will sense the presence of your own being: the feeling that you are awareness; you are peace; you are joy.
15. Continue to rest your mind in the mantra and meditate for as long as you like. When you are ready, come out of the meditation slowly. Deepen your breathing and sense your body from head to toes. Then open your eyes to your palms and stretch your limbs.
16. Continue with the practice each day, resting your attention in the breath and the mantra.
Guidelines for Practicing Meditation
• Create a pleasant space for practice, one that is neither cluttered nor too confined.
• Practice once or twice every day at about the same time.
• Early morning, late afternoon, and before bedtime are especially good times for practice. Practice before meals, not after.
• Start with ten minutes and increase the time gradually until you enjoy sitting for fifteen to twenty minutes.
• Observe your mind’s capacity and don’t fight to sit longer than your mind is willing.
• Reinforce your practice with reading and contemplation.
String of Pearls: Using a Mala
Mala and mind form a partnership; they
help and motivate each other.
—Pandit Rajmani Tigunait
Like most children, I learned to pray using simple gestures. I closed my eyes, bowed my head, and sometimes awkwardly folded my hands. In rare instances, I knelt to pray, but that was the extent of my repertoire. A rosary was never part of my family’s religious tradition, and I did not understand the purpose for using one. In fact, I associated beads with the string of pearls in my mother’s jewelry box—not with prayer at all.
Later, when I began to study yoga, I was surprised to discover a number of students wearing strings of beads around their neck. I could see that some of the necklaces were ornate, but most were made of simple, wooden beads—sandalwood or rosewood—strung with colored thread and tasseled at a prominent point on the string. The necklaces resembled rosaries, and so for a time I ignored them, since they were not part of my background. But as my spiritual universe broadened, my interest in those beads increased.
When I received a personal mantra, I was also given a string of beads, a mala, for my own use. My curiosity blossomed and I discovered that many students at our yoga center owned
malas but simply didn’t wear them. When the quiet cue to “sit for meditation” was spoken, lights were darkened, cushions arranged, and malas emerged from pockets and purses all around the room. The mala, it seemed, was an established meditation tool.
The Mala
A mala (Sanskrit for “garland”) is a counting device. It is used to count the number of mantra recitations completed during a period of meditation—one repetition per bead. A mala also serves as a physical cue for reciting a mantra. As fingers slide from bead to bead, the mind quietly sustains the mantra even when other thoughts pass through the mind.
A mala usually contains 108 beads (although some malas are made with half or even a quarter of this number). An additional bead, the tasseled bead called the meru bead, indicates the beginning and end of each cycle. Despite the fact that the mala has 108 beads, only one hundred repetitions are credited for a trip around. Thus, eight “malas” equals eight hundred repetitions of the mantra. Giving credit for only one hundred repetitions per mala makes counting easier, and it also acknowledges the unfortunate fact that the mind is wandering for part of the meditation anyway. (Some say the extra eight repetitions are given away for the benefit of others.)
Good malas have knots between each bead. This prevents the beads from sliding into one another, abrading the string (the sutra), and separating as the string stretches with wear. If the knots are tied too tightly the mala will be stiff and won’t hang easily in the hand. Conversely, if the knots are too far apart, the beads will slide and wear down the string. So you’ll find that a well-tied mala is both a source of comfort and convenience.
Mala beads can be made of many materials. Some are specially suited for particular meditative practices or are thought to have unique properties. For example, malas made of the rudraksha (“eye of Rudra”) seed, a seed found in just a few locations in the world, are said to be particularly appropriate for the practice of mantras connected to Shiva. Crystal or zirconium malas can be used for the practice of the gayatri mantra, a purifying mantra. Lapis is said to help remove illnesses. Wooden malas are suitable for most mantras, feel comfortable in the hand, and have the virtues of being both light and relatively inexpensive. While selecting an appropriate mala can enhance your practice, do remember that in a world in which objects take on miraculous properties through the relentless efforts of advertisers and marketers, the material of the mala is far less important than the sincerity and one-pointedness with which you bring the mantra to mind.
Using a Mala
Methods for holding and using a mala have been passed along by generations of meditators. Without being secretive, most practitioners keep their mala out of view and refrain from letting others handle it casually. Showing a mala to others is by no means forbidden—the mala is a tool, not a relic. But the mala is usually not worn on the outside of one’s clothes, nor paraded for others to examine. The reason is that, after a lengthy period of practice, the association between mantra and mala becomes so strong that showing the mala without some purpose feels inappropriate. Among some practitioners, this feeling is so powerful that the hand used for turning the beads of the mala may even be kept in a cloth bag (a gomukhi) during practice. Concealing the motion of the hand is equivalent, for them, to modestly concealing the motion of the mind.
One of my meditation teachers took a somewhat more casual view. While he did not make a display of his mala, he did not mind sitting in front of others as he did his meditation practice. I remember often watching his hand turn the beads and thus being drawn into my own practice.
The mala is usually suspended from the ring finger. The middle finger is drawn back slightly to create a small “V” between it and the ring finger. As the mala rests in that V, the thumb pulls the mala bead by bead. Sometimes the thumbnail is needed to hook the bead and pull the mala along. Some practitioners use the tip of the middle finger to help turn the bead as well.
Recently I experimented with changing hands—holding the mala with my nondominant hand. The experiment reminded me of how clumsy I felt when I first began using a mala. I sometimes lost hold of the beads, found them sliding uncontrollably through my fingers, or dropped them altogether. With patience you can get through this awkward phase, and it’s worth the effort. The movement of the mala in the hand is not only a good method for counting mantra repetitions—it also relieves physical tension and helps sustain concentration as meditation sessions increase in length.
When I finish using my mala I often place it in a small ceramic bowl near my meditation seat. My wife and I have enjoyed selecting containers for our malas, and changing the containers from time to time gives new pleasure to the ritual of using them. For traveling, I have a small silk bag that draws tight around the mala. Often I keep the bag or my loose mala in my pocket so that I can use it in the car or on an airplane. I keep a spare mala in what was meant to be the ashtray of our car for use during unexpected lulls. Lately I’ve begun storing one in my shaving kit as well, because occasionally my mala is accidentally left at home.
Keeping Count
The mala is not the only traditional method for counting mantra repetitions. If you are keeping track of relatively small numbers of repetitions, you can touch the tip of the thumb to the three divisions of the middle, ring, and small fingers. A pattern for counting in this way is illustrated below. Suppose you have decided to repeat a mantra twenty-one times. Follow the pattern on the fingers and you can easily keep track of the desired number. Notice that each cycle around the fingers brings you back to the center space of the ring finger, from which the count begins again.
Too Laborious?
All this might sound a bit tedious to you, especially if the idea of repeating a mantra itself is also new. But these ritualistic-sounding details simply streamline your concentration effort. The point is to enlist the mala in the service of your practice. Once you have done that, the mala itself is much like your finest writing pen—an implement, yes, but also a symbol. Just as the pen symbolizes your aspiration to communicate good and well-articulated thoughts, the mala symbolizes the subtlest form of yoga practice, the silent prayer or mantra repetition known as japa.
The word japa means the repetition of a mantra, and therefore another term for the mala used in meditation is japa-mala. The two elements of the mala—beads and thread—represent the goals of japa. The beads are the seeds that will grow into a mature knowledge of the Self. The thread is the force joining all beings together and linking each individual to the universal consciousness in which life has its source.
Because of this association with the goals of practice, the mala is sometimes held at the heart center when it is used. There it engenders a feeling of devotion. Others rest the hand using the mala on the thigh. This reduces strain in the arm, especially during longer periods of meditation. In this case, placing a cloth beneath the mala to keep it off the floor is a symbolic way of showing respect for it. You can decide whether such ritualism is helpful to you.
mala held at heart and at thigh
The Meru Bead
The tasseled bead called the meru bead is symbolic as well. It represents the state of transcendental consciousness, the central goal of practice. Because of this symbolism, even the person constructing the mala gives special attention to the meru bead. The knot linking it to the other beads is more elaborate than the knots connecting each bead to the next, and the tassel attached to the meru (sometimes called the “guru” bead) is reminiscent of the crown chakra, the peak of spiritual attainment.
By convention, after completing a circuit around the entire mala you do not cross the meru bead. Instead, reposition the mala and return in the other direction. Just like Penelope, the devoted Greek wife of the hero Ulysses, who cleverly wove and then un-wove her cloth while waiting for her husband to return from war, the meditator weaves the mala first in one direction and then the other, never fully completing the task. Thus the mind loses its artificiality and haste, but not its determination to reach the goal.
In practice, it is a bit of a trick to negotiate this change in direction without using two hands. You may find the mala slipping from your grasp from time to time. But by holding the last bead with your thumb and third finger and then sliding the ring finger out and reversing the mala’s direction before replacing it, you can handle the change quite smoothly. The last bead now becomes the first, and japa begins again.
String of Pearls
In the end, the movement of the mala follows the mind and not the other way around. As you recite a mantra, you do not wait for the next bead to be turned, but rather time the movement of the beads to match the reverberation of the mantra in the mind. The mala is thus invested with spiritual meaning because it symbolizes the mental pulsing of an eternal sound. Each sound is the real pearl.
Motivation for Meditation
Forget the past. Human conduct is ever unreliable until
man is anchored in the Divine. Everything in the future will improve
