A. VIPASSANA MEDITATION
Being with the universe, just the way it is. Sounds, sensations in the body, just allowing each sensation to be, to be just the way it is. Sometimes the awareness is drawn to the sound of a bird, sometimes to coldness in the body, sometimes to pain, and other times to thought. Just notice your awareness skipping from sensation to sensation, from thought to thought. If you experience discomfort, just move your body very gently, noticing the intention to move, and then the moving.
Notice that the awareness is like a flashlight, and the beam focuses now in one place, now in another. Sometimes it’s focused on a sensation on the surface of the body, and other times on a fleeting memory or a plan. At other times it’s drawn to a sound, when the beam focuses on the sound. Each thought and sensation arises and draws your awareness to it, and then soon your awareness passes on to something else.
Let the awareness move—from thing to thing to thing. Notice that the sensation of a moment ago is now gone. The thought you might have been having two minutes ago—where is it now? The awareness has gone on to something else.
Now one of the processes in meditation is concentration, which means, very simply, bringing that flashlight beam of awareness to one point, and letting it rest on that one point; and each time it moves away from the point, very gently bringing it back again. We’re able to use most any point for concentration; sometimes it’s a candle flame, or a point on the forehead. In this case, we’ll use one of the traditional points of focus: the breath. But the whole breath would be too much to follow, so you pick a very tiny component, a small sensation that goes along with each breath. There are two places where you can do that. The first is to focus at the tip of the nose, just inside the nostril. You will notice that with each in-breath, there is the feeling of air against the inside of the tip of the nostril, and that with each out-breath there is again the feeling of air passing by the inside of the nostril. So you can focus at that point, and with each in-breath, notice it as “breathing in,” and with each out-breath, notice it as “breathing out.”
This meditation is transcribed from Ram Dass’s audiotape “Vipassana Meditation.” It is an example of a session of concentration meditation, in which the attention is focused on a primary object, in this case the breath.
The alternative point of focus is in the abdomen; within the abdomen is a muscle, which you can feel rising with each in-breath and falling with each out-breath. As it rises, you note “rising,” and as it falls, you note “falling.” After you’ve experimented for a few moments with these two options, pick one of them, and for the remainder of this meditation, stay with that particular choice—either the “breathing in/breathing out” at the tip of the nostril, or the “rising/falling” in the abdomen.
This point is now called your primary object. It becomes like the center of a flower: you let your awareness rest in the center, at the tip of the nose or in the abdomen; and each time your mind, your awareness, is drawn away from the primary object—to a thought or to a sensation—notice that it has been drawn away, and very gently return your awareness to the primary object.
Meditation is a very sweet art. You’ll find the primary object becomes like a home, like a cave, and after a while you are content just to stay with the breath, and give the awareness a rest from all of its wandering and jumping, here and there.
It helps in the early stages to silently note “breathing in” and “breathing out,” or silently note “rising” and “falling.” Each time the awareness moves away, as soon as you notice it, in a very soft and gentle way draw it back to the rising/falling or to the breathing in/breathing out.
If you’re just beginning in meditation, you will notice how resistant the mind is to staying on one point. It’s had years of freedom to roam here and there. It’s a very slow and patient process, to train the awareness to stay with the primary object. You must be very gentle with yourself.
If your awareness is drawn away by pain, note “pain,” and then return to the primary object. If the pain persists, then you may want to make the pain itself your primary object, and just notice the pain as precisely as you can. To keep the mind from wandering, keep it right with the pain. When the pain dissolves, then you turn once again to the breath.
If you experience sleepiness, you may want to take a few intentional deep breaths, noticing them very attentively as “rising/falling” or as “breathing in/breathing out,” and then let the breath return once again to its natural rhythm.
Thoughts that arise about the meditation or about your ability to do the meditation are just judgments, just thoughts that are drawing your awareness away; note them, and then once again return to the “breathing in, breathing out” or to the “rising, falling.”
Examine the breath at your point of choice very precisely. In the “breathing in” or in the “rising,” note the beginning, the middle, and the end of it. Note the space after the in-breath, before the out-breath begins. Then in the “breathing out” or in the “falling,” note the entire exhalation—the beginning, the middle, and the end of it. Notice the space between the exhalation and the next inhalation.
During these few minutes of meditation, you have no other business than just to stay with the breath.You’re free not to have to plan, or to remember, or to collect sensations. Just come home to the breath. Sounds, sensations, thoughts—each like a flower petal that draws your awareness away from the center. Notice it, and return again to the center.
At the conclusion of each meditation, it’s good to take whatever quietness you have achieved, and allow that opening to make you a conduit, to bring messages of peace and light out into the universe. You may want to offer this “Metta Meditation,” or blessing, to do that:
May all beings be free from danger
May all beings be free from mental su fering
May all beings be free from physical su fering
May all beings know peace.
Om
B. MINDFULNESS MEDITATION ON FOOD
by Joseph Goldstein
One way to stay grounded on the experiential level rather than on the thought or conceptual level is to develop a very strong mindfulness of all the processes involved in eating. A lot is revealed about our own minds and bodies when we learn to eat with awareness, to eat mindfully. First, we begin to see that point at which desire arises. We then become mindful of desire and our subsequent actions. As we observe the processes involved, there can be a deep and penetrating insight into the fact that it is all impersonal phenomena happening. There is no self, or I, or me, or mine in the food, there is no self or I in the eating of it, or in the awareness of the eating. It is all an empty, impersonal process going on.
Eating meditatively is a profound practice, in that one can attain high states of samadhi and even enlightenment in the very process of eating. There have been many cases, in meditation centers or where people are practicing to a very high degree, where in the very process of lifting the hand, someone may go into samadhi, and their hand just stays there, halfway to their mouths, for as long as they stay in samadhi. Or they may experience the moment of nirvana while eating, experiencing a moment of enlightenment. It’s a very good practice to cultivate.
What we’re going to do now is to learn how to observe eating with a silent mind, to experience all the different mental and physical processes involved. For this exercise, you might use a few raisins. The first thing that happens is the intention to look at the food. So that intention should be noted: “intending,” “intending.” Then the head turns, so that it can see the food. The turning of the head should be done mindfully, noting the whole process that’s involved: “turning,” “turning,” “turning.”
As a result of the turning of the head, the color of the food, comes into contact with the eye, and seeing-consciousness arises. There should be a mental note, a state of mindfulness with regard to the fact that we are seeing: “seeing,” “seeing.” Notice that all the eye sees is color—the eye does not see “food.” Food is a concept. In this practice of mindfulness we want to stay on the experiential level of the process. So we note “seeing,” “seeing.”
Because of seeing, the intention arises to move the hand to take the food.The noting of the mental intention before the act should be done carefully: “intending,” “intending.” Then the movement of the hand should be done mindfully: “moving,” “moving.” Just experience the sensations of movement—no “arm,” which is a concept, no I, no self, no me, no mine. There is simply the impersonal, material process of moving, and the process of knowing the movement, all done very meditatively, very mindfully. “Moving,” “moving.”
Then there is touching of the food. The experience of the touch sensation. The intention to lift the arm—the mental intention— should be noted before the movement is begun: “intending,” “intending.” That mental intention becomes the cause of the arm being raised. The cause and effect relationship should be seen very clearly.
Then “raising,” “raising”—experience the whole movement of the arm. No I, no me, no mine, no self, simply movement and the awareness of movement. The arm is brought up. Intention to open the mouth: “intending,” “intending.” Opening of the mouth: “opening,” “opening.” Very aware, very mindful of all the physical processes involved, and the knowing of them.
Opening the mouth, then the intention to put the food into the mouth: “intending,” “intending.” Putting the food into the mouth, placing the food.The feeling of touch of the food on the tongue—just touch sensations and the awareness of them. No self, no I, no me, no mine, simply the awareness of sensation.
The intention to close the mouth: “intending,” then the subsequent closing. Not chewing yet, unless you want to eat your meal with your arm up in the air. So—intending to lower the arm, noting the mental intention, then the moving of the arm, making the movement the object of mindfulness. Then the intention to begin chewing, and the subsequent chewing process, watching the movement of the mouth, of the jaws, of the teeth. The awareness of taste—the tasting that comes in the process of chewing.
Just at this point, there is a very interesting thing which happens: generally after the first couple of chews, taste begins to arise—and then it disappears! The food is still in the mouth, but it’s rather tasteless. At this point, because of our desire for more pleasant taste sensations, we often find the hand again reaching for more food. Food is still in the mouth, and we’re still chewing it, but the hand is moving and taking food and putting it into the mouth. Become mindful of the arising and passing away of the taste and the whole subsequent process, of the food being mashed up, then the intention to swallow and the swallowing. Again, the intention arising to take more food. Notice the intention, and then the reaching for the food again, following the whole process through the taking of the food, the intending to move the arm and the moving of the arm, the intention to open the mouth and the opening, the placing of the food, the closing of the mouth, the replacing of the arm, the chewing, the tasting, the swallowing—all very distinct, impersonal processes happening.
By cultivating this kind of mindfulness of process, not only do we become aware of how our desire for food arises, and watch that desire mindfully without identifying with it, we also begin to penetrate into the very basic nature of the entire mind-body process. And done very mindfully, it’s a deep and penetrating meditation.
As a general suggestion to those of you who are cultivating awareness or mindfulness around food, a useful exercise might be to eat one meal a day (or even just a piece of fruit) in silence, mindful and very attentive to the entire process involved. The entire exercise becomes meditation. And in this way we gradually expand the state of mindfulness to include the entire experience of all our activities, and we begin to live in a very meditative space. It’s valuable to cultivate this kind of penetrating awareness.
C. BUDDHIST MEALTIME MEDITATIONS
by Jack Kornfield
The techniques that I’m going to share with you, which come from my teachers and from the Buddhist tradition, are all designed for the same purpose: for breaking the illusion of separateness between you and the food, or breaking the attachment or desire. For it’s not what it is that you eat that makes you wise and leads to the development of insight, but the process of how you eat that will lead to that. And the Buddhist emphasis is always on the attitude, on the cultivation of certain mind-states, on letting go of the attachment to sense desires.
The first meditation that’s done in the Buddhist tradition is a meditation on loving kindness and compassion, on the Boddhisattva nature, on the sharing of our food with all the beings in existence. I’ll share with you one Buddhist chant, a Pali chant, that’s often used to offer food: Sabe lokami ye satah, Jivanta hara he tukamanunang, oh jinungsabelabante mamaje tasah. “May all sentient beings share this meal with me, and by the power of merit, may all beings live in health and happiness.” Then throughout the meal you keep to this mind-state of loving kindness, of compassion, of sharing whatever there is with all the beings in the universe.
Another technique to use in eating is to consider the food as broken down into its elements. The purpose of this is to develop detachment and wisdom into the emptiness of self, or into the Brahmanic nature of all that you’re doing. So you take your piece of food, and you hold it up and look at it, and you recognize in it the aspects of the earth element—of solidity, of hardness or softness; of the element of fire—the heat or cold of it; of the air or vibratory element—the element of distension that keeps it in that shape; and of the element of cohesion that keeps it together, the water element.You see that in the food, and you feel it, and you examine it. And then you look at your own body and you say, “Wow! There’s the element of hardness, of solidity . . . the element of heat and cold . . . the element of vibration, distension . . . the element of cohesion.” So all I’m doing when I’m eating is taking the elements and putting the elements into elements. And you notice that when you chew the elements, they change. The cohesion increases and the hardness disappears somewhat.You can watch the process of the transformation of the elements from the food as you chew them and swallow them.
Another way to approach eating is to do a meditation on the emptiness, again related to the Brahmanic meditation that was spoken of, where you take a piece of food, and you see that the food is not self, that there’s no one there, just food. You see your body reaching for the food and holding it, and you look at your arm and the rest of your body and realize that that’s not you—that’s just the body. And you look at the mind that knows, that’s watching all that, and you see that that’s not you either—that’s just awareness of the fact of the body or awareness of the food. And then as one very famous Buddhist teacher said, “Eating is like putting nothing into nothing.”
Another technique to use, to break down the illusion of self, the illusion of separateness, the illusion of permanence, is to look at the whole process of eating in terms of change, in the change of form and also in the change of feeling when you’re doing the eating. Imagine the whole sequence. Imagine the genesis, of the food that grew from the earth, of the green shoot and the ripe stalk or fruit, then the picking of it, the cleaning of it, the bringing of it to your table . . . now seeing the food there before you, and continuing the process—in your mind first, before you start to eat—of considering the change in the food, the eating of it, the tasting and swallowing, the change of that food into elements, into nutriments for your body, into excrement, back into the earth, and the whole cycle beginning again of the regeneration of food. So you see everything in terms of a flow, in terms of a process, and you see that it’s all changing. That’s another way to look at eating as a meditation.
Still another way is to be mindful of sensation and touch. Sensation and mindfulness of sensation are the basis for a lot of vipassana, or “insight,” meditation practices, because they’re something you can see very clearly changing from moment to moment: the arising and ceasing of sensation. So in eating, you can be aware first of the sensation of yourself sitting there . . . you can be aware of the sensations in yourself—of hunger, or desire, the feelings in your body. When you reach for the fork, you can be aware of the sensation of your hands touching the utensil, feeling that in your fingers; you can be aware of the sensation of the movement of your arm, bringing the food up to your mouth, and of the sensation of the touch of the food on your lips. Be aware of the sensation on your tongue and your teeth, as you chew the food . . . be aware of the sensation as you swallow, feeling the food go all the way down into your stomach. By paying close attention to the sensation, you cut off the discrimination of your mind.You don’t allow yourself to say, “Ooo—wow! That was delicious!” Or “Ugh.That was awful.” You’re just mindful of the process of each sensation arising and ceasing as you eat, and so you’re able to cut the desires.
A way that’s very commonly taught in monasteries, and especially talked about among the bhikus or the monks in the Buddhist tradition, is to look at food just in terms of its sustenance: the contemplation of food for sustenance. The body is simply a vehicle to be cared for and not to be pampered, and food is simply a means of sustaining life to continue your spiritual practice.You’re not eating because you enjoy eating, but you’re eating as a way to sustain your energy to continue your practice on the spiritual path.
There’s a story that’s told about the kind of attitude that eventually needs to be developed in this meditation on food for sustenance: There was a couple and a young child who were crossing a vast desert. They brought very little food with them, and they had run out of food and just about run out of water, and they still had a long way to go. And they were quite sure in fact that they would die. Well, from the heat of the day and the desert, in fact the child did die. And the two parents decided that in order to continue the crossing of the desert in their journey, so they would not die, they would eat the body of the child. And that’s the attitude of taking food not out of pleasure, not out of desire or out of attachment, but simply for sustenance, just as those parents ate the flesh of their own child. That’s a very powerful attitude, one that breaks through the greed and the attachment to the sense pleasures of eating, and it is another kind of meditation.
When you’ve developed that attitude, you don’t eat more than you need. All of these different meditations are merely techniques, devices for developing balance in the mind. Because the whole of the dhamma is just a question of balance, really. Here you have to balance your greed and your habitual patterns of enjoyment and attachment with a meditation, to get you to a point where you’re no longer attached.
When I was first in the monastery in Laos, it was an ascetic monastery, and I’d been there a few weeks and was really checking it out, to make sure that the teacher looked like he was enlightened and that all the monks were practicing right. And I saw some things I didn’t like. Monks were a little sloppy eating, or they’d get their food and they’d say their chant and then they’d start to eat very fast. And even the teacher I wondered about; he would say very contradictory things at times to different people. I went to him; I was very disturbed, and I even thought of leaving and going to find another teacher, a better guru to fit my model of what a teacher should be like. And I said, “I feel really uncomfortable. Why do you say one thing to one person and one to another about how we should eat or how we should act?” And his answer to me was this: “The way I teach is very simple,” he said. “It’s like someone walking down a path or a road at night, and sometimes they get off a little bit onto the right side and I see them and I say, ‘Go left.’ And sometimes they almost fall in the ditch on the left side and I see them and I say, ‘Go right, go right.’ That’s all I do. And all of the meditations are techniques to use to develop a balance of mind and mental factors.”
So I asked him further. I said, “Well, I’m still disturbed. Some of the monks are eating quickly, and even you sometimes seem to be sloppy.” It was very hard to say—I thought a lightning bolt might strike me! Nothing happened. He just laughed and he said, “You have to be thankful for the appearance of imperfections in your teacher— the things that make him look like he’s not enlightened.” I said, “Oh, yeah?” And he said, “Because if it were not for these imperfections, you might be deceived into thinking that the Buddha was somewhere outside of yourself.”
The balance of mind is the key. When there’s a very strong imbalance, you need strong medicine to balance it. Some of us really get into food trips—Thanksgiving dinner, or going to the refrigerator and the pickles and olives and cheesecake and all those wonderful things. And in order to balance that, one other meditation that’s used is to contemplate on the true repulsiveness of food. Think about it: the benefits of the meditation on the repulsiveness of food are that you really begin to know the nature of food and of the process.Your mindfulness grows. You understand the lust in yourself, and you are able to let go of it.The meditation on the repulsiveness of food begins with contemplation on the procurement. So you think, if you still eat meat, of the animals and their carcasses, and of the flesh and blood and fat, and of the disgusting juices that run out when the animals are cut open. Or if you don’t eat meat, think of the food from the earth, and even of the dirt of the earth itself, of the shit from the cows and the horses, the dirt of all kinds. And in this society, they’re trying to keep your food clean, so they put in preservatives. But just let the food stand out in the sun for a short time and it turns rancid and moldy, or rotten and foul and oozing and fermenting.
And the meditation for the monks as it’s given in the scriptures is this: he’s eating his food, he’s dipped his hand into the bowl and is squeezing the food in his fingers, “and the sweat trickling down from his five fingers wets any crisp food that there may be and makes it sodden, and when its good appearance has been spoiled by his squeezing it up and it’s been made into a ball and put into his mouth, then the lower teeth function as a mortar and the upper teeth as pestle and the tongue as a hand, and it gets pounded there with the pestle of the teeth, like a dog’s dinner in a dog’s trough, while he turns it over and over with his tongue. And then the thick spittle at the tip of the tongue smears it, and the filth from the teeth in the parts where the toothbrush cannot reach smear it. When thus mashed up and besmeared, this peculiar compound, now destitute of its original color and smell, is reduced to a condition as utterly nauseating as a dog’s vomit in a dog’s trough.Yet notwithstanding that it is like this, it can still be swallowed because it can no longer be seen by the eyes. And where does it go? It is swallowed by one who is twenty-five years old, or thirty years old; it finds itself in a place like a cesspit, unwashed for those twenty-five years or thirty years.” That’s strong medicine, but it’s a very effective balance for the passions and desires that go with the delicious taste of food and with all the food trips in our culture.
So food isn’t what it appears. The very highest practice, the place where this initial balance developed, is the practice of vipassana mindfulness. This is the mindful observation of all of the mind and body processes that are involved in eating, as they change from moment to moment to moment: the thoughts, perceptions, feelings, and sensations in the form. To quote the Buddha, “The merit made in serving one thousand meals to the whole order of monks with the Buddha at its head cannot compare to him who develops clear insight into the arising and vanishing of phenomena for just one moment.”
D. SATSANG MEDITATION
Satsang means a coming together in Truth. The beauty of having satsang is that you are sharing a contract with another person that you will help one another go to God. That means that you are both consciously working at seeing one another as souls.
The best way to see another person as a soul is just to sit down and do it. It’s something to be experienced, not talked about. It’s the place where our individual differences look like background and not like a figure anymore. If you have spiritual friends to hang out with, here is a little satsang collaboration you might want to try together. It’s like a joint meditation exercise.
Sit down opposite somebody. Get comfortable; take a couple of slow breaths. Don’t talk to each other—this isn’t a social thing. Don’t “talk” with your expressions, either—forget about the smiling and the nodding and all those facial gestures. Just sit and look at the other person.
Focus at a point right between one another’s eyes, so you’re able to see both of their eyes at once. Now just sit with one another like that, with the eyes as the focal point for, say, a thirty-minute meditation. Relax, sit there, and let it all happen to you. Let yourself see all the things that arise in the other person, let yourself experience all the feelings you have as you are being looked at intensely by another person. Keep looking and looking.
Pretty soon, you will see the other person’s face begin to change. Sometimes it will become incredibly beautiful, and sometimes incredibly horrible. Either way, don’t let it create a reaction in you. Don’t let it suck you in—just stay right with the eyes and say, “And this too. And this too.” Look at your ten thousand horrible visions and your ten thousand beautiful visions, and let them all go by. Just keep looking and looking and looking.
After a while, you will discover that the “stuff ” of it all starts to change. It starts to become ground rather than figure. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly, all just passing show, and you see deeper and deeper and deeper until you are just looking at another being who’s looking back at you.You are soul acknowledging soul.
Those are the kind of games you can play when you have satsang as your playmates.
E. HOW TO USE A MALA
A mala is a string of beads, used to chant the names of God. It’s the same thing as prayer beads, or a rosary. A Hindu mala typically has either 108 beads (108 being considered a sacred number in Hinduism) or 27 beads (which is one-fourth of 108). In addition to the 108 or 27 “counting beads,” a mala generally has an additional bead, called the “guru bead,” which hangs perpendicular to the circle of counting beads. The illustration on page 300 gives instructions for making one—all you need are some beads and a string.
A Hindu mala is usually worked with by using the right hand. The mala is held resting over the third finger of the right hand, and the beads are brought toward you, one by one, using the thumb. Each bead counts one repetition of the mantra. When you get around to the guru bead, you don’t count it, and you don’t pass it; you stop there, mentally bow to the guru, flip the mala around, and start going back the other way. Each time you come to the guru bead you awaken once more, then you turn around and go back the way you came.
Now for those of you who are left-handed (as I am): In India, you would be inclined to use the right hand anyway, because of certain cultural traditions. The Tibetans, on the other hand, have no such rules; they use their malas in either hand, and with any finger. In the Hindu tradition, you can use any finger of the right hand to hold the beads, except for the first finger, which is the pointing or “accusing” finger; you don’t use that one. The reason most people use the third finger is that there is a nerve on the inside of that finger which is connected to your spine in such a way that you’re getting a little added benefit from the practice. It’s similar to an acupressure point, and it adds a little extra energy rush to the process.
Doing a mantra doesn’t require using a mala; the mala is just there to add another dimension to the practice. Besides speaking the mantra, and hearing the mantra as you speak it, the process becomes tactile as well. If you want a psychological analysis of the use of a mala, you could say that it is a “kinesthetic cue device.”Without it, you could be doing the mantra and get lost in doing it mechanically. But if you suddenly feel the bead between your fingers, it wakes you up again. Bead by bead—it’s like the steps of a ladder, walking you straight into the Brahman.
Instructions were given on how to make a mala and each student received a bag containing 36 small wooden beads, one larger wooden bead, a white nylon cord, and a thread from Neem Karoli Baba’s blanket with which they could make their own mala.
F. THE CHAKRAS
The chakra system works within the energy framework of our bodies; although the chakras themselves are operating at the astral level, they express themselves through our bodies’ energy patterns. Traditionally there are said to be seven chakras, starting with the muladhara at the base of the spine, and ending with the sahasrara at the crown of the head. The chakras aren’t physical forms; they’re more like foci of energy, and they’re located along the sushumna, which is a kind of astral-level spinal cord. The sushumna is said to run down the center of the spinal column, but it isn’t something you would find on an X-ray. In the same way, the “ida” and the “pingala” are the “nerves” of the system, running alongside the sushumna, but they aren’t “nerves” you could dissect in an anatomy class. These are all astral entities.
The energy which moves through the sushumna is known as “kundalini,” which literally means “she who is coiled.” Kundalini energy is visualized as a coiled serpent, which resides at the base of the spine, until something—something in our practices, or something in the course of our evolution—causes it to begin to uncoil and to rise up the sushumna. As it does, it encounters each of the chakras.
The first chakra, the muladhara (which is at the base of the spine, halfway between the anal sphincter and the genitals) is primarily connected with survival functions. The second chakra, svadishtana, is the sexual chakra. The third chakra, which is called manipura, is located in the area around the mid-section, at the solar plexus; it’s thought to be connected with expressions of ego-power. The fourth chakra is called the anahata, or the heart chakra, and it’s related to compassion. The fifth chakra, the visuddha, located in the throat, is connected with turning inward toward God, and therefore with the development of the “true voice,” the divine sound speaking through us. The sixth chakra, which is the ajna, is located in the center of the forehead; it is usually called the third-eye chakra, and it is connected with the inner guru and the higher wisdom. And finally the seventh chakra, the sahasrara, at the crown of the head, is the thousand-petaled lotus, enlightenment, the merging into Brahman.
As the kundalini energy uncoils itself up the spine, it passes through each of those chakras in turn, through the focus of each form of energy. The kundalini radiates out from the sushumna at each chakra level, and it energizes, or activates, each of those physical/psychological energy fields. But if, as the kundalini begins to rise, it comes to a center which is blocked, the energy will emerge as some form of behavior. It’s like water going up a tube; if it gets to a crimp in the tube, it can’t go up any further. Say the energy gets to the second chakra; the name for the second chakra, which is the sexual chakra, translates as “her favorite resort”—referring to the kundalini. It’s sort of like the Riviera of the chakra-world; the kundalini gets there and decides to hang out and vacation for a while. Or maybe it manages to dodge that shoal, but then it gets to the third chakra, and it gets grabbed by all the ego’s power needs and it can’t go any further.
In the real world, the process isn’t as neat and orderly as all that makes it sound, however. It’s not like you finish with the first chakra, now you go on to the second . . . you finish with the second and go on to the third, and so on. Everybody’s got a little of everything going all the time, more blocked in this chakra, less blocked in that one. As you get more sophisticated about the chakra systems, you begin to assess your own predicament in terms of the movement of the kundalini—you’ll say: “Well, a lot of my energy is still tied up in my second chakra, but my fourth chakra is beginning to open.”
I’ve worked some with the energies of the chakra system, and sometimes when I’m sitting and talking to somebody, suddenly what I see is a living chakra chart, right there in front of me. I see the various chakras, all sending out energy: “Bzzt, bzzt, bzzt”—like “lust, lust, lust,” or “power, power, power,” or “compassion, compassion, compassion.” Or maybe I’ll see that nothing’s coming through the heart chakra, but the third eye is like a headlight beam.
The kundalini gets awakened in many different ways. Swami Muktananda had the capacity to give shaktipat, a direct hit of energy that would awaken the kundalini. It would have the strangest effects on people. Suddenly somebody would get up and start to dance—somebody you’d never have expected to behave that way: a rotund gentleman in a conservative blue serge suit, for example, who got up and started to do an incredible Indian dance. And the man sitting next to him, who looked like a professor, with his tweed jacket and the pipe in his mouth, who suddenly started to do mudras—complex, exquisite, perfect mudras—but the look on his face was one of total perplexity. Somebody else would be doing automatic breathing and bouncing across the floor like a beach ball. The whole place would begin to look like the back ward of a mental hospital.
All the while, Swami Muktananda would just be sitting up there, with his eyes closed, playing his ektara. But his presence was like a beam of energy, activating the kundalini, the energy centers, in all the people around him. The shaktipat—his giving of shakti—caused the kundalini to begin to uncoil, and depending on where the chakras were blocked, the energy came out in different behavioral manifestations. Block a little of it here and some more of it there, and that combination will make you get up and dance. Some other combination will cause automatic breathing. If you understand the system, you can keep score of who’s got which chakra-thing going.
If you’re drawn toward working with energy systems, you might decide to explore working with these chakra energies. There are different ways to do it.You can try doing it through meditation, for example—you can visualize bringing the energies up through each of the chakras, and out through the crown of your head. Or you might want to work with another type of visualization exercise, like a mandala from Tibetan traditions. In some other traditions you might be given a specific mantra, a “bij” or seed-sound, for opening a certain chakra.You can use pranayam, a method which works with breath control to move the energy from chakra to chakra. Each of those is a technique that works in a specific way to awaken the kundalini energy. You can try them out, experiment with them; you can see how they affect the chakra energies, and how that jibes with your other spiritual practices.
G. THE YOGA OF PSYCHEDELICS
First off, I want to say that I would never recommend to anyone that they use psychedelics as a means to alter their consciousness. But if someone comes to me and says, “I’m going to take this,” then I say to them, “I think you should study and understand something about the method you’re about to use, so you can enter it in the spirit of its being a yoga for you, a path toward union.”
The predicament we face at the moment is that most psychedelic substances are currently illegal.When people ask me what I think about government policy toward psychedelics, I always respond that the most reasonable thing to do about substances which alter human consciousness is to educate people, not to police them. It makes very good sense to prepare people for a psychedelic experience, maybe even to license them, the way you do before you let someone drive a vehicle. But you shouldn’t prohibit anyone from using whatever substances they choose. You respect the right of other beings to alter and to explore their own consciousness in their own way. That ought to be a basic human freedom.
At the moment, however, it isn’t. And so if we use psychedelics, it will be in an atmosphere in which we can’t really fulfill Maharajji’s criterion of “feeling much peace.” In our minds there will be the inevitable paranoia that comes from working with something that is illegal; that means there is always a certain little part of our consciousness which has to be held down to “watch out for the fuzz,” to put it in the vernacular. That’s why if we are using psychedelics, it’s good to have someone available to take care of the scene on the physical plane, so we can relax and concentrate on doing our inner work.
In thinking about psychedelics, the first thing to understand is that there is a whole range of substances which share that name, and that they are of very different strengths. Some are mild; most marijuana, for example, falls in that category. Mild psychedelics open up the possibilities, but they don’t override the personality. Stronger psychedelics, on the other hand—things like mescaline, or psilocybin, or LSD—are likely to override our existing thought patterns in a very powerful way. If we aren’t prepared for that, it can get pretty hairy. If we don’t have a sufficiently deep jnana practice, some understanding of what’s happening to us, we freak when the entire structure of our existence starts to fall away. That’s why it’s important to do some reading and studying and contemplating in advance, so we’ll have some foothold in the experiences as they start to happen to us.
Those of us who have experienced psychedelic trips know that there are two points in the session where problems can arise.The first is going up, when we find the world and ourselves in it dissolving all around us. That’s the Kansas motel trip I described (see page 191): “Help, I’m dying!”
The other point that can be freaky is the re-entry, when we start to come back and we see what a schlock scene we’re returning to. That can send us into a tailspin, as we try to run away from our lives and hang on to the high. Usually, however, once we come down, those are exactly the experiences that motivate us to clean up our act. It’s just part of the process of seeing the horror show we have created for ourselves, out of our ignorance, and it becomes the inducement for doing the practices of purification and all the rest of it. Then we can be a little more open the next time around.
It’s extremely useful, especially with a first session, to have someone on hand who is very experienced, someone quiet and calm, someone with whom you feel loving and safe. If that’s not possible, try to have something else, like some music that you love and can surrender into, something that is familiar and comfortable. And always take a psychedelic in a place where there’s minimal paranoia and where you can trust that you won’t be disturbed.
Be open in your heart to each moment, and only do what feels totally right. Let’s say you and some friends have a psychedelic session planned for Saturday night; everybody’s all ready, but there’s a feeling inside you that says, “No—for some reason, this isn’t right.” Trust that feeling. Wait. Wait until the moment feels absolutely “right on.” Listen carefully to your own heart; if you feel that using psychedelics seems to be part of your practice, then use them, but use them very consciously.