Class 1: Breath Watch

The Master ~ Patanjali

When we look to the meditation tradition of the world, surely the yogic Hindu tradition of ancient India stands as the oldest and perhaps the greatest. This culture and practice is at least four thousand years old, and yet we continue to be amazed at the depth of its understanding of human nature.

Cutting-edge physics is just now coming to realize that the radical new vision they're developing of the sub-atomic workings of the universe isn't new at all - as written documents reveal, the ancient yogic masters discovered through direct inner observation exactly the same reality that scientists are unearthing today.

• The mental tool that the yogic masters employed to make their discoveries about the physical and mental world is the same basic tool that we're learning in this meditation program.

That tool is our almighty power of focused attention.

How could ancient meditators discover the same truths about quantum mechanics that scientists are just now discovering? How can we discover from the inside-out, what scientists discover from external experiments?

Scientists employ analysis, calculation, manipulation, assumption and experimentation to develop a model of reality and offer scientific proof. Fom the remarkable wisdom of the ancients concerning material reality we can see that the primary truths of the material world can also be discovered through direct inner experiencing of reality.

From my understanding, the yogic tradition as presented by Patanjali in his many Yoga Sutras emerged from dedicated employment of a person's power of attention in special ways so as to reveal core truths about life.

In my own training in various forms of yoga, especially kriyayoga, I explored the yogic approach to mental focusing. From studying Patanjali's written texts as well as from direct instruction with my teacher, I began to explore what it really means to focus one's attention on one's breath experience.

Especially in this first expansion of consciousness to include the breath experience, I feel strongly indebted to Patanjali. Who was this man, and how can we use his teachings?

No one is quite sure when Patanjali was born, nor is much known about his personal life. He probably lived one to two hundred years after Jesus, about seven hundred years after Buddha. His teachings, most notably outlined in his famous Yoga Sutras, stimulated a revival of Hindu yogic practice a few hundred years after Buddha's spiritual revolution had swept through India.

Patanjali powerfully revived the ancient yogic tradition of the Hindu culture and also advanced the tradition into a fast-spreading new meditative thrust, with literally dozens of influential spiritual teachers emerging in the generations after Patanjali's initial inspiration.

• You'll find that most contemporary yogic teachers ascribe their meditative roots to Patanjali, or to masters following in Patanjali's name.

However, it's important to remember that Patanjali codified and expanded on an already-vast spiritual tradition dating back at least two thousand years before he wrote the Yoga Sutras. India and the surrounding regions, as mentioned, were almost certainly the birthplace of the world meditative tradition.

Imagine a spiritually-focused as opposed to materially-focused culture in which most of the truly brilliant minds of each new generation, for literally hundreds of generations, accepted as their primary occupation the challenge of observing from the inside out, the inner workings of the human mind and body, spirit and soul.

When we tap the ancient Hindu meditative tradition, that is what we're doing - accessing the accumulated discoveries and wisdom of literally hundreds of thousands of brilliant and spiritually-devout human beings who devoted their entire lives to looking inward employing the tool of consciousness itself, toward their core of being - and then sharing with each other and posterity what they discovered.

• I remember studying the ancient Upanishads and Yoga Sutras when I was a college student studying psychology - and being shocked to find that several thousand years ago, with zero experimental method or scientific tools at their disposal, the ancient yogic masters had discovered literally all the basic psychological principles I was being taught in my classes - plus a vast realm of wisdom and procedure that seemed entirely beyond the capacity of my psychology professors to comprehend, let alone teach and apply.

Buddha also was born a Hindu and his spiritual search as a student of the yogic tradition. He practiced and then expanded upon the spiritual and psychological foundation he inherited.

This expanded teaching with its ancient yogic roots spread into Tibet and down into China, Japan and the rest of the far East, as the ancient yogic meditative wisdom along with the Buddhist teachings, became absorbed into a great many cultures.

• Recent research has also unearthed the fact that Hindu and Buddhist monks were actively teaching meditation in first-century Rome. Much of Jesus' teachings contain a lingering flavor of the wisdom of yogic insight. The words Christ and Krishna are obviously related. Mohammed and the Sufi tradition also exhibit spiritual roots in yogic teachings.

In sum, the seminal teachings first written down in the Upanishads and later codified by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras, stand as the ancient foundation of much of the world meditative tradition.

As we now tap this yogic tradition, especially related to breath meditation, we're accessing the most complete study of the breath phenomenon ever conducted.

We're also becoming participants in this ongoing research into what actually happens when the power and light of human consciousness is regularly focused upon the most primal act of the human body - that of bringing life sustaining air into the body, and then blowing out the debris of the bio-chemical process.

What are the specific insights drawn from Patanjali's teachings that we use in this new meditation method?

First of all, Patanjali taught that there are three levels of meditation:

1. Concentration - where you hold your mind's focus of attention on a particular sensation over a period of time;
2. Contemplation - where you use the associative power of the mind to reflect deeply upon an object or theme;
3. Meditation - where all words become quiet, and you are observing the present moment without focus or thought.

The Hindu understanding of psychology seems from our scientific perspective almost entirely correct and phenomenally insightful. And my method clearly builds upon this three-layer approach to meditation.

• For instance, when I say be aware of the sensation of the air flowing in and out of your nose (are you?), you first of all concentrate on those sensations; then you perhaps have a flow of associations about the experience; then you move into a quiet-mind consciousness where 'you are your breathing...'

At the heart of my new approach to meditation are seven short statements called focus phrases. These are statements that aim your attention instantly and directly in directions that stimulate consciousness expansion.

The employment of verbal cues to elicit inner responses certainly has its origins in the yogic understanding of meditation. Based on Patanjali's three-level consciousness-expansion process, this is how you will naturally approach the focus phrases I'll teach you herein:

1. First you will concentrate on learning the seven focus phrases that make up the core of this method, and also concentrate your attention where those focus phrases suggest;
2. Secondly you will contemplate the meaning of the words of the focus phrases, and reflect upon the experiences that come to you when you say them in order;
3. Thirdly you just quietly meditate - as the focus phrases also fade away, and you are beyond words in your experience.

The reality of life is that we habitually aim our attention where our thinking mind tells us to. We think a thought ("I wonder where my car keys are?") and our eyes start looking for car keys.

• Words do direct our attention. So if we want to take charge of where we focus our attention, we do best to employ specific words to stimulate that focus of attention - to initiate the 'concentration' step of meditation.

The first focus phrase to initiate the mediation process, as we're learning in this chapter, is:

• " I am breathing freely."

When you remember to say these words, at first you might not be aware of your breathing - but with a little guided training, you'll find that as soon as you say the words, your attention does shift effortlessly and instantly to your breathing experience. Say it - do it!

The focus phrase accomplishes two actions at once - you say, "I am breathing..." and your full attention turns and pays attention to your breathing experience. And by saying "I am breathing ... freely," you clearly encourage a relaxation of tensions in your breathing, so that you shift into a calm free expansive breath experience.

As the ancient yogic tradition taught, spoken words carry great power. When the physical body is involved in expressing an inner intent, as in vocalization of words, the expression becomes a whole-body present-moment experience.

This is why you don't just think the focus phrase "I am breathing freely" - you say it to yourself sub-vocally.

There's vastly more power in the spoken word to awaken awareness, than in juust thinking the word. When you think a word, it remains a cognitive act. When you speak a word, it becomes a whole-body experience.

• There's no audible sound, but you 'feel' the words being spoken in your throat.

This makes saying the focus phrase an experience, an act that your body makes - and this gives the words power!

So please approach all seven focus phrases in this manner - say them sub-vocally to yourself.

Try this now for yourself. Say the focus phrase to yourself, and experience the power of the words to turn your attention to the sensation of the air flowing in and out of your nose!

• "I am breathing ... freely," and be open to a new experience!