When I sits in meditation, I Am not there yet.
Neti Neti. This is not the thought I’m seeking.
Breathe the Bellows Breath. Bhastrika Pranayama. Stoke the fire. Nothing but breath and a little force. Raising the temperature of the furnace. When the mind sends a thought across the scape, like a vision of that other breathing guy in the advertisement, who sends his passions this way and that, attractive…
Neti Neti. This is not the thought I’m seeking.
I comes back to center. Slowly. Gently. Remembering its training in the grey. We hold the line together, acknowledging the visual of the bellows cloud only, until the body has reached its limit and the time is come to lock in the power, and the glory, forever and ever, amen.
Neti. Accepting that truth, but still, it is not the one.
Mula Bandha – the life force is locked at the perineum. Simultaneously Uddhiyana Bandha, locked in the abdomen, at the solar plexus. Rise, through the sternum, into the throat – the furnace has stoked the fires properly; the body takes its position with no more guidance from above. Jalandhara Bandha – chin comes gently down to sternum, throat lock. The Mahabandha, great lock, allows the life force to linger over, mingle with and permeate the granthis, the great locks of consciousness along the central channel.
Focus. This is what I is here to do.
Push onward and upward. Tongue to palate, sight centered in the brow, throat comes back as Jalandhara is released – Shambhavi Mudra. The life force is brought into Ajna, the third eye – the Rudra Granthi, and I Am. And should a thought intrude, a question in this interlude of bliss, then;
Neti Neti. Shh. Quiet now.
Focus. This is what I is here to do.
Fascinating little guy, this focus mechanism, who can look into three, four, five, seven points simultaneously and yet still get distracted by mind or muscle memory. Neti Neti. Shh – gently. Quiet now. Focus. Don’t think about focus, but focus. This is what I is here to do.
Deep breath. An Ocean Breath. Ujjayi Pranayama. Exhale completely. Engage the locks. One, two, three. Who’s that guy come to interrupt? A picture of the morning raga master Sri Ravi Shankar flits across the mindscape as the ear strums a chord on the master’s sitar in concert.
Neti Neti. Beautiful, but not the one I needs now. Neither is this confounding grammatical structure what I needs now. Neither the beauty nor the bliss, nor the explanation.
Focus. One, two, three. Release Jalandhara. Watch. The force moves up of its own volition. Engage Shambhavi Mahamudra. Hold. Release.
Nadi Shodhana. Taking the breath along the right and left channels. Circulating. Raising. Because it is the morning routine. Because we have committed to a great operation, of health and life, wisdom and being.
Accepting that truth because it’s why I is here. Right thumb to right nostril. Closing the channel called Surya Nadi, the Sun Channel, also called Pingala, I inhale through the left, Ida, Chandra Nadi, Channel of the Moon. Why this order? I doesn’t know that, but the wisdom is there guiding from above. From deep within. It must surely be the active channel at this time.
Neti Neti. Not to think. These are not the thought we seek.
Self knows which channel is open, where what flows. Where the blockade is. The breath rises on the left channel, pale blue, igniting at the center, at the third eye, like a fountain, or a gas plume, She rises into the crown.
Yes. This is it. Thumb releases, ring and middle fingers close down the moon channel and I exhales, expelling the prana from its host in the crown, downward along a vision of pale red in the sun channel on the right, to meet at the bottommost nexus of Sushumna Nadi, the central channel which finds its beginnings in the pelvic floor.
Circulate. Bringing the breath from its source in the Golden Cauldron, where both Serpent and Egg find their home, back up along the pale blue channel of the left-hand path, allowing the vision of the heart at the center.
The light, the prana, the life force, envelops the Anahata Chakra in the energy sheath, Pranamaya Kosha, in turn initiating cellular rejuvenation in the heart muscle of the food sheath, Annamaya Kosha.
Circulate. This is why we are here. Entertain the vision. Build on it. Guide it. Vijnanamaya Kosha, the Wisdom Body knows before the mind vehicle at Manomaya Kosha. I know. I Am. I do. Together we sew. And reap. Mending. And should another thought creep in, like how I is to explain all this later, then;
Neti Neti. Not this. Not this. This is not the thought I Am to be right now.
Circulate. See. Focus. Be. Engage. Tend to the Operation of Thy Will. Know thy will to be but representative of the Greater Will. When neither this nor that thought intrudes; when I is pure, Great Works of Art are accomplished.
Header artwork by Rajeshwar Nyalapalli | Strength Provider
…is a Saiva Tantrika, Gyana Yogi and founder of Uma Maheshwara Yoga & Ayurveda. David has an MA in Semiotics, lives in Japan with his family and works as a coach in L & D, devoting his time to developing science-based tools and programs that help people reach the fullest potential of the human condition.
