The following accounts present just a few examples of different people’s experiences in relaxation practice …

A young student says….

“Yes I like relaxing. But I’m not always in the mood for it. The best times seem to be after I’ve had a really busy day or had a game of football.  Then it is usually good. But anytime I can make myself feel cooler or warmer as I want to by using my breathing exercises. I like to lie down and do nothing as it is pretty peaceful.”

……………..

“I lay down to relax hoping to see just how far I could go. First I let all the muscles in my body relax and feel loose and free. When I was sure that there was no more residual tension left in my body I started to concentrate upon my breathing – taking deep but rhythmical breaths. After this was established I tried to make my mind relax but I couldn’t. Then when I stopped trying to slow my brain down, it did actually slow down.

My body then became very light except in the joints, that still felt heavy. Then to my surprise I began to feel smaller and smaller until I felt about 1 cm square!

After this I felt I was being expanded, blown up like a balloon and became very rounded. This feeling lasted for a while and was pleasant enough. Then I began to feel normal again but it was the most fantastic sensation I have ever felt and although I have tried again, I haven’t been able to accomplish quite the same again.  But each time I relax I feel something different and it is always good.”

A student.

…………

“I prepared in the classical manner – lying flat on the floor in a north/south aspect.

As soon as I shut my eyes I began to feel aware of the physical sensations of my body and had to make a slight muscular adjustment here and there, in order to be totally comfortable.

Then I began the tension/release technique, thinking of each part of my body in turn, starting with my feet and deliberately tensing my muscles to feel what that felt like, and releasing strain to be conscious of what relaxation was like. Part by part I did this throughout my whole body. By the time I reached my head and tensed my eyes and relaxed them I was happy just to lie still and become aware of the pleasant feeling that pervaded my whole body.

After a minute or two I commenced rhythmic breathing but soon tired and wanted to be still. As soon as I did I felt my body become light and I seemed to lose the sense of my body. It was lovely.  I just seemed to float and I enjoyed it.

I have no idea how long this lasted but I didn’t actually go to sleep although when I thought of moving it was just like awakening in the morning. I was pleased to stay where I was but knew I had to get going again. The pleasant feeling stayed with me for several hours. ”

A student

…………..

“I’d been having a bad time with relationship problems and was feeling pretty confused and lost.  I felt I had to do something to get over this mood yet everything I tried didn’t work. So eventually I thought as a last resort to do nothing at all.

I lay down and shut my eyes but as it was still daytime it felt strange at first. Then I decided to keep very still and not move a muscle, just to see if I could do that. But the thing that prevented me was the process of breathing . Somehow instead of being disappointed, I began to get interested in deliberately breathing deeper and deeper. I’d never done that before, but at least it kept my mind off my problems.

This must have gone on for some minutes until I felt tired of doing this and thought I’d lie still again, which I did. I felt strangely light with a sensation of floating that was very pleasant and had to allow myself to indulge in this new experience that reminded me of something similar I’d known as a child on going to sleep.

But I didn’t sleep. I just lay there feeling light and free and floating and my inside feelings were just that nothing mattered very much. Everything felt right. Somehow I knew my problems were not very great and would soon dissolve and I would feel happy again.

I really enjoyed this time of being still and now I practise it whenever I feel the need. It certainly worked for me the first time and most times afterwards.”

 A student

……….

“I find relaxation practice a reliable and exciting time. It is not a discipline, as it was at first but has become enjoyable and refreshing. Each time it seems to produce different experiences and I can never relate these to anything.  They just seem to happen.

Always I begin in the way I was taught in class to lie flat, without a pillow and wait for my body to be comfortable on the floor.  My eyes are shut and I begin to be more aware of the sensations I have in my body. I am not moving at all except of course with respiration. I feel energy sensations in my feet and hands and eventually all over the body.

This particular time I felt the energy centred in my upper body and head and became aware of a beautiful coloured deep blue light, although my eyes were still closed. I felt as if I was being pulled upward and lost all sense of my muscles. I didn’t feel conscious of a shape, I just felt I was a being.

With the wonderful upliftment came a feeling of protection. It was as if I should never feel alone again. There would always be this lovely presence to care for me. I didn’t see anyone but felt there perhaps was someone beyond the blue light. The light became soft and gradually less, just like an electric dimmer.

Then my attention returned to think of my body and it felt soft and relaxed and my breathing gentle and I remembered this special feeling of being protected and stored it away to remind myself in the future.” 

A student

………………..

“After all the preliminaries of exercise, some breathing techniques, muscular commands and so on I entered the first stage of relaxation which felt very pleasant except for a little discomfort on the hard floor.

Then I was ready to involve my imagination and persuade my body to feel ‘heavier and heavier’ as my teacher said would encourage total physical relaxation.

So I began to affirm to myself, “I am feeling heavier and heavier”. I confess I was a little cynical about any result and was amazed when I began to feel leaden and extremely heavy. But because the sensation was pleasant, I did not resist it. After a little while I was ready for the sequel exercise. This is to help emotional relaxation by imagining any hardness and heaviness melting to become soft and fluid. I did this pretty easily and found it quite delightful. I felt beautiful in fact. I felt nothing would every worry me again if I could retain this feeling. Although I can’t always succeed, but I remember to practise this feeling of melting when I feel stressed and up tight. It helps.”

A student

 …………

Personal programming of our brain and thought is possible and includes the technique of Mantra. As well as the fine well known classical forms of yogic mantra we can find real value in devising our own. These can be comprised of sacred words and prayers from religious and philosophical teachings that we repeat for confirmation or identification with spiritual principles and qualities. The simplest of course are the affirmations we use to help ourselves strengthen the virtues to which we aspire in our Sadhana.

The ancient teachings remind us of the several forms of mantric expression – these being strong, vocalized word or words often chanted in group meditation; the gentle whispered mantra applied in our private meditations; and the one considered to have most potent direct effect upon the individual being the unbroken silent cyclic mental repetition that encourages us to link with the greater Universal Consciousness through our breath as in the sacred “Om” or “Aum”.

Many singers unconsciously or consciously use the science of sound to help voice skills or to stimulate moods and feelings that when magnified in a group emit considerable power and influence. They undertake specific exercising of the vocal chords and apply unique dedication to their art beyond the average understanding. Most of us who could be described as ‘shower time singers’ are not as self disciplined. So for the majority of us the simple guidelines we learn in improving breath control to help formulate and extend the power of our voice and our chanting through pranayama are satisfactory.

The principle of 3 word mantra is simple but helps us isolate and focus upon our individual purpose or values that gives us a wide range of more mundane application  e.g. Strength, truth,  harmony.  The more profound impersonal spiritual chanting of the sacred “AUM” recognizes the triune principles of divinity when intoning.

The 5 fold focus upon the Natural Elements of fire, earth, air, water and ether requires concentration and some imagination to harness one’s mind to an aspiration to understand all the natural spheres of life both outside and within our own nature from the solid physical to the subtlest and invisible realms of the soul.

Seven is a popular choice for artists and those who are attracted to the use of natural light and the symbolism of Light itself.  Perceived by us split through the natural spectrum of the beautiful rainbow colours the study of colour itself allows a 7- fold mantra technique that giving a single word to each colour that represents one quality of light itself – red, orange, gold, green, blue, indigo and purple.

Twelve fold mantra is often the choice of astrology students who wish to cultivate each of the human virtues exemplified in the zodiacal signs. Christians find it easy to attune to the mystical symbolism of the 12 disciples or the saints’ calendar as others associate particular powers to the 12 rays used to reflect the radiance of Divine Light. Yogis combine appropriate chants with the traditional physical exercise of Surya Namaskar. Others choose to exercise blending in the Lord’s Prayer as their Mantra.

Find the words that comfortably suit your understanding and your aspiration.

All affirmations and mantra when combined with our powers of visualization and concentration become potentially powerful tools in helping ourselves and indirectly, contribute a positive influence upon those who share our environment.

It is sometimes necessary and also pleasant to refrain from activity and to be still.

Although we all have activities that must be attended to and most of us fill our days with these we also find pleasant relief in hobbies, crafts and sports that provide us with very different types of activity and entertainment.

However, constant and demanding or restless physical activity, if extreme, can be tiring. So it is in conscious relaxation practice or meditation when the body is still that there is time for restoring energy, as in sleep. It feels so good that we hardly need to be reminded of the need for physical stillness.

Emotional need for stillness is correspondingly important. There are times for emotional expression and interaction with others and times required to let the waters of our feeling nature come to rest.

When the physical body is still this becomes easier to enjoy a pleasant, restful mood.

To be able to establish mental stillness is the most difficult test for us and the struggles we become engaged in are well documented to demonstrate the various ways different people are able to come to some command over their own thoughts. This is the focus of the classical teachings of Patanjali’s Sutras and is the ultimate aim of the Raja Yogi.

It could be described as a battle or a yielding exercise. It certainly is one of subduing the passing thoughts to allow a higher awareness beyond the mind. For those who identify very closely with the mind it is not easy to surrender the mind ego but like most stages in our growing once we have ‘let go’ our thoughts the rewards come to us in higher awareness and states of consciousness. This is not easily described as either thoughts or feelings but best understood as states of pure Being.

In the natural laws as taught through Yoga we graduate to first learn to command the physical part of us, the emotional, then the mental nature until we are focussed more surely in our deeper nature of the soul.

It is during interludes between the many adventures of soul, mind, emotions and body that we are offered rare chances to experience spiritual consciousness. Supernal conscious awareness generally requires a harmonious state or degree of integration of the personality and reduction of all restless activity. In this state it is possible to hear the whisper of intuition, the echoes of nature’s wisdom of the ages and to welcome the guidance of those greater in human stature than our own.

Stillness is the key to greater health, more generous heart, clearer mind, happier soul and towards becoming a wiser human Being.

In meditating we aim for a harmonious flow of thought awareness rather than erratic statements of thoughts and ideas without a common thread. In meditation one’s self consciousness of thought activity changes to a state beyond the process of thinking to a state of higher awareness or Being that is related to a higher type of feeling rather than thinking.  It is usually a little of both.

We learn to build a bridge between the differing realities of the material and subtler or spiritual states of consciousness. In states of relaxation and meditation, these two worlds tend to blend. We have a somewhat similar state that occurs between sleeping and waking. Ultimately they will become one to the extent that they will no longer seem isolated one from the other but will unite to create the integration which has inspired the name of Yoga – union.

Through meditation we learn to manage the mind and its resources and faculties.

We also cultivate the best of our capacities for creative thought and ideas and to discover our innate strength and increase self-respect as well as refreshing our respect and reverence for great nature outside ourselves.

Our consciousness changes and grows with the practice of meditation. We learn to release strain of all kinds, stress due to problems and inner confusion and to expand instead of contracting and resisting life.  This allows us to grow through acceptance of our own soul and its potential to make our own life as fine and good and happy as we wish it.

When meditating we tend to feel ‘in tune’ and anything seems possible.

Some develop a simple formula or procedure that is immediate in attuning them to the state that they desire, whether it is following physical exercise or Asanas, or breathing techniques or the silent repetition of a prayer or familiar saying.

The adventure into the inner worlds of our nature offers constant discoveries that can rival any outer excitement.

These experiences entice us to maintain our meditation practice throughout our lifetime.

One of the finest explanations of the principles of Ayurvedic medicine principles was written by the late Dr Benytosh Bhattacharyya who was highly esteemed in both western and eastern

medical circles.  We owe much to his work in the material and subtle spheres of science.

HEALTH AND HARMONY – Eastern Medicine

“The word “harmony” is one of the noblest, most magnetic words in the English language. Harmony is the central principle of the cosmos.  It is order, it is concord, it is unity under definite and invariable laws, which bind all entities having a tendency to discord, disorder, disruption.  The highest harmony is in the music of the Spheres or in the cosmic sound represented by the sacred syllable OM.”

“In soul-stirring music and superb paintings, harmony is seen at its best.  Harmony is essential in society, amongst nations and in the world.  Harmony has discord as its antithesis just as the day has its antithesis in the night.  Harmony is beauty, discord is ugliness.  The expression of harmony is in the cosmos, of discord in chaos.  Harmony is pleasure of the soul and discord is pain. Causing pain is breaking harmony in all forms of life.  “Worship of the Divine in Nature” says an adage ” is to please a living being.” the world progresses through these two opposites of harmony and discord.  Apparent opposites exist in the world in order to meet ultimately in harmony.”

“In medicine, harmony is health, discord is disease. When the three elements of air, fire and water and their fifteen principles work in perfect harmony it is called health. But when they work inharmoniously and instead of helping one another begin to destroy one another, disease is produced.”

Dr. Benoytosh Bhattacharyya

Yoga is essentially a dynamic expression in the interpretation of the western mind. We are vitally concerned in any ideology which will promise more efficient living, more abundant health and more material improvements. And this no doubt attracts many students to follow Karma Yoga, the Yoga of Action.

Disciplining our lives and achieving self-mastery through Yogic techniques enables us to develop our own self culture lives and accomplish our inherent aspirations. Everyone has abilities that can be used for one’s own self culture and purposes or for the benefit of others.  We are all granted opportunities to develop our own talents and to in some way help others. Many are lazy and find both avenues neglected but will find a degree of disappointment or frustration is felt with any procrastination.

Everyone must nurture a degree of unselfish longing to contribute to society. Until this is fulfilled in some way, life will tend to seem wasted in spite of all the transitory experiences and pleasures.

Yogic practice develops self confidence as we come to understand the presiding natural law of Karma, or cause and effect that rules all action and determines repercussions. We know that constructive effort is rewarded and goodness will result in positives in life. Karma however is not a bargaining table. Its great calculations are left to higher agencies than our human system of debits and credits. The ancient Egyptians understood that both the heart and mind are weighed in the balance to determine the quality of our actions and depicted this in their frescoes. It is important in understanding Karma Yoga to realize that right action follows right thought and right feeling.

There comes a time that each of us must make decisions about how we choose to spend our years ahead and what we would wish to do. In the planning that helps us focus upon priorities we have to make choices such as whether we will live entirely selfishly or to include a degree of effort towards contributing to the community.  We are all aware of the many avenues where help is needed by those less fortunate and it is this awareness that helps to motivate us to act. It can become very uncomfortable if we choose to do nothing.

Westerners are active and purposeful. Studying and applying the principles both of physical and mental activity and balancing energies with quiet meditative moments help to make us candidates for leading a vital, healthy and rewarding life that satisfies our personality as well as our soul. The Karma Yogi understands and enjoys activity and work. Work is enhanced by the injection of enthusiasm. This, the Bhatia’s energy, is known and expressed by Kahil Gibran in his simple words “Work is love made visible.”

Westerners can accomplish much by their dynamic approach to life when the passive power developed through meditation inspires their enterprises to reach beyond material purposes alone to goals that satisfy the deep needs of others and to advance human progress.

We may think that we differ in our understanding of love. But love is a feeling in our hearts that is as true as life itself.

However, our exercise of our love, like the need to exercise our body, is often neglected and we tend to suffer from constriction of our natural feelings as we suffer with limitations of stiff joints and tendons.

It is suggested that just as the physical body needs strength and flexibility, so our heart requires the same ability to adjust and expand.

It is not so easy and nearly impossible to share the personal experiences that have built up the strength of our love. But it is simple enough to share a reminder of the common technique that motivates us all to deliberately stretch our natural affections so that we can expand and grow emotionally. This allows us to embrace a wider sphere of life with our hearts as well as our minds.

One basic exercise is most comfortable when seated in meditation or when lying quietly.

As often wisely reminded, we must apply the directive to ‘mind our own business’ and so we start with ourselves. Consideration of self affection is not meant in a derogatory sense.  Self respect and liking our own self provides us with a reasonable basis to gradually develop in time an unconditional state of universal love.

Sincere feeling of affection for our bodies, our personality and our deeper being puts us in touch with whole soul with a sense or realization of our soul as our best friend.

After a time it feels natural to stretch out beyond ourselves to we embrace those closest to us in our real feelings of affection – not dutiful or habitual feelings, but with our genuine feelings of love.

Relaxing thought, let our heart remind us of all those loved ones whose images flow through our consciousness. It is very likely that we begin with our own families, extending to others who have once been in our lives and to those who are still in our lives.  Our love for those who have already died can remain clear and real as before and often increases.

Sometimes we are reminded through our sense of gratitude and appreciation, of those who have nurtured or assisted us.

Sometimes affection flows through the constant regard we hold for certain authors and individuals who have been a positive influence upon our lives and our thinking.

Then there are those people to whom we feel soul attuned although not directly in physical contact.

Sometimes we go back in memory to our early life and sometimes are intensely focussed on the present.

We can gravitate to our natural admiration and respect for great and noble people who have lived, or devotion to others who evoke a higher spiritual response of devotion.

We continue to spontaneously extend our feelings rather than our thoughts and enjoy the sense of loving so many or so greatly.

Gradually it becomes easier and easier to expand our hearts to love the whole city, state, country, continent, until we embrace human life as a whole.  And sometimes we recognize that it feels easier to love the whole world impersonally, than to love a single individual. Whatever is a real or spontaneous experience in this exercise is yours and yours alone.

There are times of great difficulty when the heart is not receptive to the idea of expanding your affection to human beings. It is more attractive to be concerned with loving Nature. Then we must find the love that is uppermost in your personality in appreciating the many avenues of Nature’s expression.

Here the same principle applies. We commence with recognition of a sincere love for say, one tree before the flow of many types of trees passes and so we can feel love for all trees without distinction.  From our love for one animal our heart expands in our love for all animals;  from one blue sky to all skies; from one rock or gem to all gemstones; from a love of one natural Element (fire, earth, air, water or ether) to all the five natural elements; from one star to the cosmos.  There is no end to the limitations of our heart’s love until we experience it.

Do try this exercise.  You will find it interesting and will discover new facets in your concept of love – expanding from the minute to the magnificence of the universal.

There is a principle which is pure, placed in the human mind, which in different places and ages hath had different names;  it is, however, pure and proceeds from God.  It is deep, and inward, confined to no forms of religion, nor excluded from any, where the heart stands in perfect sincerity.  In whomsoever this takes root and grows, of what nation soever, they become brethren in the best sense of the expression.

 John Woolman, American Quaker saint

Our Monistic god, the all-embracing essence of the world, the Nature-god of Spinoza and Goethe, is identical with the eternal, all-inspiring energy, and is one, in eternal and infinite substance, with space-filling matter.  It “lives and moves in all things”, as the Gospel says.  And as we see that the law of substance is universal, that the conservation of matter and of energy is inseparably connected, and that the ceaseless development of this substance follows the same “eternal iron laws,” we find God in natural law itself. The will of God is at work in every falling drop of rain and every growing crystal, in the scent of the rose and the spirit of man.

Ernst Haekel (Professor Jena University)

There is, I know not how, in the minds of men, a certain presage, as it were, of a future existence; and this takes its deepest root in the most exalted souls.

Cicero

Be simple, not with the simplicity of negation but with the profundity of comprehension.

Sri Ram

We are immortal and that our soul tomorrow may be in peace, let us rebuild our civilization.  Let us establish our government of realities, our commonwealth of the wisest.  We are the citizens of tomorrow. We are the life that shall throb in the communities yet to come. We are the voice that shall speak in these of an unborn day.

To that great life which is our true self to that tomorrow which to us must ever be the now, let us dedicate our inner selves and the achievements of our external natures.

Manly Palmer Hall

He is the happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.

Goethe

One can be instructed in society; but one is inspired only in solitude.

Goethe

Love covereth all things with its garments. Love is unfailingly kind.

Rev. J. Todd Ferrier

He who conquers others is strong, but he who conquers himself is mighty.

LaoTse

When all desires that dwelt in the heart are let go, then the mortal becomes immortal and reaches the eternal.

Katha Upanishad

‘Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.

Our bodies are our gardens to the which our wills are gardeners.

Shakespeare’s Othello

Natural Law is immutable … all Life serves Law.

Cicero

Look death in the face with joyful hope, and consider this a lasting truth; the righteous man has nothing to fear, neither in life, nor in death, and the gods will not forsake him.

 Socrates

Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is to manifest this divinity within, by controlling nature, external and internal. Do this either by work, or worship, or psychic control, or philosophy, by one or more, or all of these – and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doctrines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples, or forms are but secondary details.

Vivekananda

………………

Understanding nature is to expand our understanding of the Creator. Its infinite variety in form, colour, quality and expression leaves us in perpetual wonderment.

Philosophers recognize the invisible Supreme Spirit or Universal Consciousness and Its outer expression in the visible material world of Nature are One.

Natural life on our Earth offers us a visible comprehension of the limitless wonders of the Cosmos. It reminds us that in the face of this immensity we have benefit of the natural world around us and bear a responsibility as custodians to help maintain it.  This is not hard to accept if we love Nature or aspects of it and seek to improve our efforts to widen our embrace of the entire natural world.

We need to keep mindful of our limited capacity to contribute to Nature itself and yet retain our sense of personal power and confidence that we can live within the human realm and contribute to the wealth and wonder of human culture and achievement.

There are many amongst us who recognize and appreciate the Natural world around us and are aware of the natural laws that function and imbue all life as we know it on our planet.

To the extent that we refer to these laws and seek to live by them we gradually grow in comprehension of the truths and realities of great Nature itself.

Nature is our eternal guide and teacher and we are in our role as its students. When in doubt we can apply the litmus test by asking ourselves as to what is natural. Whereas other creatures react to instinct alone, humans possess intuition or the voice of free will and choice complicates matters for us. We must learn to blend instinct and intuition in our choices.

To choose to rebel against Nature and challenge the known natural Laws leads to chaos.

To choose to apply natural Law to our lives leads to harmony and order.

Our relationship with Nature, as our relationship with all things, with people and with God, is based upon the consciousness that Love as the vital ingredient.

As we feel our direct relationship with Nature develop so our sense of spiritual security grows and we can expect human stresses to melt away to know peace in our hearts and minds.

Greek Philosophy on Exercise

Only exercise when you’re going somewhere!

 Zen philosophy offers a similar idea –

It is not necessary to walk unless you are going somewhere……..

Solon when asked to go to the Games to see an athlete who could swim like a fish, jump like a deer, run like a hare – he declines, saying it is not comely he thinks, that man should imitate animals, but if there was a man who could think like the Gods – he would travel to see him!

 There are differing opinions upon the importance, the type and the potential health benefits of deliberate physical exercise.

Those who are already engaged in physical labour and tasks demanding physical exertion are of course less concerned about conscious exercise as a self discipline. But for the majority in the western world of our time, exercising has become an extremely popular pastime.  We are bombarded with many contraptions, with exercise bikes and other machines for use in the home. To attend a gymnasium is essential in the trendy social and commercial worlds if you are concerned with your physical image and muscle tone.

In the midst of this, yoga classes quietly continue to offer a peaceful, gracious and stress free method of building muscle, stretching tendons and revitalizing one’s being through the application of breath control together with dynamic body movements and the use of controlled static postures or Asanas.

The two systems are very different.  Each has its value but the first is demanding and requires repeated effort and discipline that is twinned with a philosophy of ambition that aims to accomplish a goal.

The yogic approach is more passive, requiring a non-aggressive attitude of persuasion. This is in line with its unique philosophy and system designed to help an individual achieve self mastery of the body through a harmonious co-operation of mind and muscles.

Yogic exercise is based upon a limited number of traditional exercises – the prime one being the Sun Exercise or Salute to the Sun. This comprises a flowing of 12 successive movements to 12 static positions together with specific use of the breath.

All dynamic exercise is instructed to be balanced and rhythmic. Breath control is co-ordinated with each movement.

All exercises are performed with equal attention to the balanced polarization of right/left; up and down; standing/lying; upright/inverted so that the entire body is involved.

A brief relaxation is taken between exercises to become aware of how the body is feeling and responding after the exercise.

The most important factor that identifies the difference between the commonly known exercise programmes and the yogic approach is that the mind and consciousness is turned inward, not outward to outer display. The mind and consciousness is totally engaged with the practices which are not in any way competitive.

Last is the factor of the speed or rate of body movement. Yogic exercise is seen as more elementary if the movement is quicker and more advanced the more slowly the exercise is executed. In this it is similar to the philosophy of its cousin system, Tai Chi.

Skill in yogic techniques allows slow physical controls that are more difficult that dynamic movement. The system is designed to help also slow down the rapidity of the mind and assist consciousness to arrive at stillness.

We test the validity of this system by our own experience.